Court Opinion

ID: 9518567
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 00:56:05.47268+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:29:34.915597
License: Public Domain

HANSON, J.
(dissenting).
I am unable to concur.
According to the Traffic Code of the City of Sioux Falls, which is “unofficially” available to this court, there is no ordinance prohibiting or in any manner regulating *437left-hand turns between intersections in said municipality. Hence, defendant was prejudiced by the following erroneous jury instruction:
“The Ordinances of the City of Sioux Falls do not authorize a left turn from a street into an alley, as defendant was attempting to make at the time the collision occurred. The action of the defendant in this regard was negligent * *
Naturally, if the ordinances of Sioux Falls do not expressly authorize left turns between intersections, the general rules of the road do and it is not negligence per se to make such a turn. Barnhart v. Ahlers, 79 S.D. 186, 110 N.W.2d 125.
Defendant timely and properly objected to said instruction. However, the ordinances of Sioux Falls were not offered in evidence in support of his objection nor were they included in the settled record. Thus, the main issue presented on this appeal is disposed of without decision on the merits because the majority of this court feel they are precluded from taking judicial notice of the ordinances involved.
The municipal court was obligated to, and did, take judicial notice of all the traffic ordinances of the City of Sioux Falls. His relationship to those ordinances is the same kinship as that of a Circuit Court to the laws of South Dakota. During the trial of this case in municipal -court defendant was not required to plead or prove the ordinances. They were not offered in evidence and would not have been material, or admissible, if offered. They are matters falling -outside the required contents of a settled record. See SDC 1960 Supp. 33.0736. Under the circumstances, it seems only reasonable that this court -should have the discretionary power and authority to judicially notice the ordinances involved which -are conveniently available and certified as to their validity and effectiveness. Ordinarily, an appellate court will take judicial notice of any matter which the court of original jurisdiction may notice. 20 *438.Am.Jur., Evidence, § 27, p. 55. There is no sound reason why municipal ordinances should be an exception to this general rule.
I concede the majority opinion follows time honored precedent. This does not necessarily make it a hallowed rule. The majority base their opinion on the rule appearing in City of Arlington v. Butler, 59 S.D. 443, 240 N.W. 496. That case involved an appeal on a question of law from a justice court to circuit court. It was held therein, as a majority of the courts hold,1 that the Circuit Court was acting as a court of review and for that reason c'ould not take judicial notice of the ordinance which was the sole subject of the appeal.
The only plausible explanation for the existence of the above evidentiary rule is court convenience. It serves no other purpose and, as in the present action,, it often results in the disposition of cases without decision on the merits. Accordingly, I believe this technical rule of procedure should be reconsidered and re-examined in the light of modern authority. McCormick believes the rule is “indefensible”.2 Wigmore refers to it as a “technical quiddity”.3 The Model Code of Evidence would allow the reviewing court, in its discretion, to take judicial notice of municipal ordinances in cases of this nature.4 Such would appear to be the most logical and sensible rule to follow.
Our rules with reference to judicial notice of munátíipal ordinances on appeal are not consistent. When an appeal from justice court to circuit court involves a trial de novo the circuit court is obligated to take judicial notice of the ordinances involved, City of Milbank v. Cronlokken, 29 S.D. 46, 135 N.W. 711, because, as this court said, the circuit court is for the time being substituted for the justice court and under a duty to try the case in the *439same manner it should have been tried in justice court. I submit the same rule should apply on an appeal involving a question of law. As a matter of fundamental fairness an appellate court should be able to review an action in all its aspects in the same light it was tried in the court of original jurisdiction. It would not be a great hardship on the courts to determine the existence and effectiveness of pertinent ordinances. The burden thus imposed would not be comparable to our judicial notice of foreign law act which commands every court in this state to “take judicial notice of the common law and statutes of every state, territory, and other jurisdiction of the United States”. SDC 1960 Supp. 36.0702. In both instances the courts could call upon interested counsel for aid and information.
The same issue was considered and determined by the Ohio Court in the case of Orose v. Hodge Drive-It-Yourself Co., 132 Ohio St. 607, 9 N.E.2d 671, 673, 111 A.L.R. 954. There, the municipal court took judicial notice of its municipal ordinances which were not incorporated in the bill of exceptions on appeal. However,, the Supreme Court took judicial notice of the ordinances and in doing so said:
“In our opinion the better view is that an appellate court, in reviewing the judgment of a municipal court on questions of law, may take judicial notice of an ordinance of which the municipal court did and was entitled to take notice. Rafferty, Prosecutor, v. Court of Common Pleas of Passaic County, 102 N.J.Law, 489, 133 A. 524; Sidelsky, Prosecutor, v. City of Atlantic City, 84 N.J.Law, 198, 86 A. 531; Galen Hall Co. v. Atlantic City, 76 N.J.Law, 20, 68 A. 1092; March v. Commonwealth, 51 Ky. (12 B.Mon.) 25.
“It would seem to be a cardinal principle that a reviewing court should, in determining whether prejudicial error has been committed,, put itself in the position of the trial court and judicially notice what was properly noticed below.”
*440The precedent rule which bars judicial notice of municipal ordinances on appeal involves no vested or property rights. It is procedural and court made. Therefore, this court has a continuing responsibility to re-examine and reconsider such rules for the elimination of unrealistic technicalities which stand in the way of deciding cases on their merits. Accordingly, to avoid the dry and empty result in this, and other similar cases, I would reverse, or modify the rule of evidence written in the case of City of Arlington v. Butler, 59 S.D. 443, 240 N.W. 496, by taking judicial notice of the ordinances of the City of Sioux Palls which are already available to the court and grant defendant a new trial.

 See Anno. 111 A.L.R. 959.

 McCormick on Evidence §326, p. 696.

 IX Wigmore § 2572, p. 553.

. Mtodel Code of Evidence Rul'es 801 to 806.