Court Opinion

ID: 9726711
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 13:05:02.816793+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:29.924353
License: Public Domain

VOGEL, Justice
(concurring specially).
While I agree with what Justice Sand has written except the third paragraph and the last three paragraphs, I concur in the majority opinion. The intervention of the trial judge into the proceeding, the fact that he himself brought out inadmissible evidence, and the fact that he refused to grant a motion to strike inadmissible evidence even when both sides agreed to do so, persuade me to concur in the remand for a new trial. If this case involved only the admission, in a trial to the court, of inadmissible evidence adduced by one or both attorneys, I would vote to affirm on the principle stated in Schuh v. Allery, 210 N.W.2d 96 (N.D.1973), and subsequent cases on the same point. It is the active participation of the judge in injecting prejudicial material and refusing to strike it which distinguishes this case, in my view. This indicates that the trial was, in fact, unfair.