Court Opinion

ID: 9564647
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:04:47.085881+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:35.621315
License: Public Domain

TROUT, Justice,
dissenting from Part III
B, concurring in the result of Part III C, and concurring in the balance of the court’s opinion.
Because I do not agree with the Court’s analysis of the State’s burden on summary judgment or its review of the district court’s ruling on the supplemental affidavit, I must respectfully dissent in part and concur only in the result of the analysis of the Roberts’ affidavit.
When moving for summary judgment, the moving party bears the burden of identifying those elements of its opponent’s case on which no genuine issues of material fact exist. Thomson v. Idaho Ins. Agency, Inc., 126 Idaho 527, 531, 887 P.2d 1034, 1038 (1994). The non-moving party must simply respond by providing evidence of genuine issues of material fact involving any matters challenged by the moving party. Id. at 530, 887 P.2d at 1037 (citing Farm Credit Bank of Spokane v. Stevenson, 125 Idaho 270, 273, 869 P.2d 1365, 1368 (1994)). As the moving party, Rubbermaid bore the initial responsibility of determining those issues of the State’s case on which it intended to move for summary judgment. Rubbermaid asserted three grounds in its motion for summary judgment. Rubbermaid cannot then assert additional issues in its reply brief, technically affording the State no opportunity to respond. See, e.g., McDaniel v. Mississippi Baptist Medical Ctr., 869 F.Supp. 445, 453 (S.D.Miss.1994) (refusing to consider grounds in support of defendant’s summary judgment motion, raised for the first time in defendant’s reply memorandum: “In the interest of fairness, Defendant should not be allowed to raise new grounds for the first time in its rebuttal to which Plaintiff will not have the opportunity to provide an adequate response.”). The burden is on the moving party to assert issues which are not in dispute, not on the non-moving party to object to issues which are not properly before the trial court. There was likewise no burden on the State to request a continuance or submit additional affidavits. The argument about proximate cause was never properly presented by Rubbermaid and, thus, no duty arose for the State to respond. Admittedly, it would have been advisable for the State to alert the district court that the State was not prepared nor intending to respond to Rubbermaid’s new assertions, but I do not believe the district court can consider issues not presented at the outset by the moving party.
*360Even if I could accept the district court’s initial ruling on the motion for summary judgment, I disagree that the Court should review the district court’s ruling on the motion to strike. The record makes it clear that the district court considered the supplemental affidavit in denying the State’s motion for reconsideration. After denying the motion, the judge then followed the unusual procedure of striking the affidavit that he had just considered in ruling on the motion, telling the State’s counsel: “Mr. Aherin, I’m going to make it more difficult upon you recognizing that you’re going to take this across the street.” The issue before this Court is the correctness of the district court’s ruling on the motion to reconsider, not the rationality of the district court’s subsequent course of conduct intended to make it “more difficult” for counsel. The district court abused its discretion in denying the motion to reconsider because, as discussed in the Court’s opinion, the supplemental affidavit presented evidence of genuine issues of material fact, precluding the granting of Rubbermaid’s motion for summary judgment. The State clearly should have had an opportunity to respond to Rubbermaid’s assertions regarding proximate cause. The supplemental Roberts affidavit does so and should have been considered. Thus, I agree with the conclusion of the Court in Part III C, although I reach it by a different route.