Court Opinion

ID: 9577022
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:31:00.59152+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:19:51.389680
License: Public Domain

SCHROEDER, Justice,
concurring in the result and specially concurring.
I concur in the result and reasoning of the Court but specially concur to state that Fitzgerald v. Walker, 113 Idaho 730, 747 P.2d 752 (1987), should be overruled rather than distinguished. Despite the artful manner in which the court in Fitzgerald phrased the facts, the record established that the plaintiff could not present a prima facia case. The plaintiff made a judicial admission to that effect. The fact that the plaintiff might have wanted to go to trial should have been of no consequence, since the plaintiff candidly admitted that he could not present a prima facia case. The effect of Fitzgerald was that trial courts were instructed to waste the time of the judge and the jury and inconvenience witnesses for an inevitable and admitted result — dismissal of the case. That futile pursuit should be written out of our law rather than retained on a distinction that is not consequential. The well reasoned opinion of the Court in this case should be the guide to attorneys and litigants without the vestigial burden of Fitzgerald.