Court Opinion

ID: 9514806
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 22:51:46.670987+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:06:20.976563
License: Public Domain

KONENKAMP, Justice.
[¶ 1.] Complainants appeal the dismissal of an election contest proceeding. We reverse and remand.
FACTS
[¶ 2.] In the latter part of 1999, the Watertown City Council approved the rezoning of certain property and the vacation of a public right-of-way to permit the expansion of certain health care facilities in the community. In response, a citizens group collected sufficient signatures to refer the matter to a public vote. Although the referendum and a subsequent recount sustained the Council’s actions, three registered voters initiated election contest proceedings in circuit court.
[¶ 3.] Before commencement of the election contest, counsel for the complainants filed an initial complaint and obtained the trial court’s permission to proceed as required by SDCL 12-22-3:
Such contest may be instituted by any registered voter who. was entitled to vote on a referred or submitted question, but in such case such contest may be instituted only with the permission of a judge of the court in which such contest is instituted, endorsed upon the complaint before the same is filed.
Counsel then served an amended complaint on the various respondents and parties in interest as determined by the trial court.1 The respondent health care pro*922viders served and filed an answer seeking a dismissal of the amended complaint on the basis that the complainants failed to file a “verified” complaint as required by SDCL 12-22-8:
Such contest shall be deemed commenced upon the filing with the clerk of the court of a summons and complaint, which complaint shall be duly verified, and set forth a concise statement of the facts on which the contest is based, (emphasis added).
The providers also noticed a hearing on their motion to dismiss set for December 1. In the interim, the respondent city filed its own answer contesting the complainants’ failure to file a verified complaint and joined with the motion to dismiss set for hearing on December 1.
[¶ 4.] On November 30, counsel for the complainants filed an affidavit for himself, for a member of his staff, and for each of the complainants. Generally the affidavits established that, while the initial and amended complaints lacked a written verification, an oral oath was administered before the complaints were executed affirming that the information they contained was “true to the best of [the complainants’] knowledge, information and belief.”
[¶ 5.] At the close of the December 1 hearing, the trial court ruled that, notwithstanding these affidavits, SDCL 12-22-8 required a written verification on the face of their amended complaint. It also concluded that the pleadings failed to satisfactorily indicate what matters were alleged on information and what matters were alleged on belief.2 Because the amended complaint was not verified and, therefore, did not meet statutory requirements, the trial court ruled that it had no subject matter jurisdiction and dismissed the proceedings. Complainants appeal.
ANALYSIS AND DECISION
[¶ 6.] Is the amended complaint sufficient without an inscribed verification?
A motion to dismiss under SDCL 15 — 6— 12(b) tests the legal sufficiency of the pleading, not the facts which support it. For purposes of the pleading, the court must treat as true all facts properly pled in the complaint and resolve all doubts in favor of the pleader. “Our standard of review of a trial court’s grant or denial of a motion to dismiss is the same as our review of a motion for summary judgment — is the pleader entitled to judgment as a matter of law?”
Yankton Ethanol, Inc. v. Vironment, Inc., 1999 SD 42, ¶ 6, 592 N.W.2d 596, 597-98 (citations omitted) (quoting Steiner v. County of Marshall, 1997 SD 109, ¶ 16, 568 N.W.2d 627, 631).
[¶ 7.] We find no defect in the amended complaint sufficient to warrant dismissal. The plain language of SDCL 12-22-8 does require the filing of a “verified” complaint in an election contest, but it does not require- a written verification.
The first definition assigned to the word “verify” by Black’s Law Dictionary is “To confirm or substantiate by oath.” A verification is “ * * * a sworn statement of the truth of the facts stated in the instrument verified. It always involves the administration of an oath. 1 AmJur 942, § 13, 949; 44 Words & Phrases Verification; Verify 138, 142.” Bell and Zajicek, Inc. v. Heyward-Robinson Co., 1962, 23 Conn.Supp. 296, 182 A.2d 339.
Crescent Electric Supply Co. v. Nerison, 89 S.D. 203, 209, 232 N.W.2d 76, 79 (1975). Although this language might suggest the necessity of a written oath on the complaint — most commonly an oath will be inscribed at the bottom of such documents — it is a generally accepted rule that, “[a]n oral oath to a pleading [is] sufficient unless a written oath is prescribed.” 71 CJS Pleading § 359 (1951). Such was the conclusion of the Florida Supreme Court in Cline v. Cline, 101 Fla. 488, 134 So. 546 (1931). There, certain petitioners sought to intervene in a suit for the partition of *923real estate. To their petition was attached an affidavit by a notary public indicating one of the petitioners had appeared personally before him and verified the truth of the allegations of the petition based upon her own knowledge or on information and belief. In reviewing the sufficiency of the verification, the Florida Court concluded: “[w]e have been cited to no law requiring an oath to the petition to be in writing and signed by the person making it. As a rule an oral oath is sufficient unless a written oath is prescribed.” Cline, 134 So. at 549.
[¶ 8.] In State v. Weinstein, 395 S.W.2d 525 (Mo.Ct.App.1965), a plaintiff sought recovery of an overdue account. The defendants answered and counterclaimed, but failed to attach a written verification or affidavit to their pleadings. Instead, the defendants’ attorney appeared before the magistrate and made an oral oath that the matters contained in the counterclaim were true to the best of his knowledge, information, and belief. In later writ of prohibition proceedings, the plaintiff argued the oral oath taken by the defendants’ counsel did not constitute compliance with the statutory pleading requirement that, “the defendant, or some credible person in his behalf, by his oath [verify] the truth of the allegations of the counterclaim[.]” Weinstein, 395 S.W.2d at 527. The Missouri court disagreed stating:
[T]he very construction of the sentence in which this phrase appears would have allowed the legislature to have easily substituted the words “by affidavit” or “in writing” in lieu of the phrase “by his oath.” The only reasonable conclusion to be drawn from the failure of the legislature to use different language is that they intended the phrase “by his oath” to refer to the word “verifies” and were stating how they intended the defendant or the person acting in the defendant’s behalf to verify the truth of the allegations of the counterclaim; i.e., by an oath. The legislature intended the oath to be sufficient and did not intend to require a writing of any kind.
Weinstein, 395 S.W.2d at 527-28.
[¶ 9.] Here, after the issue of lack of verification of the amended complaint was first raised, counsel for the complainants filed a series of affidavits to establish that, when the complainants signed the initial and amended complaints, an oral oath was administered to verify the facts they were alleging were true to the best of their knowledge, information, and belief. Verification was therefore contemporaneous with the signing of both the complaint and the amended complaint. Perhaps if counsel had attempted to retrofit the complaints with later verifications we might be compelled to rule otherwise. Yet no one contradicted the representation that oaths were given at the same time the complaints were executed. This is not a case of “substantial compliance,” but an instance where courts will not rewrite a statute to add words not there. As this election contest is a legislatively authorized proceeding, the statute creating it is “to be liberally construed with a view to effect its objects and to promote justice.” SDCL 2-14-12. Under the above authorities, complainants sufficiently complied with the pleading requisites of SDCL 12-22-8. Accordingly, the trial court erred in dismissing the amended complaint for lack of proper verification.
[¶ 10.] Reversed and remanded.
[¶ 11.] MILLER, Chief Justice, and SABERS, Justice, concur.
[¶ 12.] AMUNDSON and GILBERTSON, Justices, dissent.

. See SDCL 12-22-15 providing in pertinent part that:
In other cases involving a submitted or referred question, the court shall, upon filing [of] the complaint, direct by order the service upon such persons or officials as the court believes might be interested in resisting the relief sought.

. SDCL 12-22-8 does not require the verification to distinguish between what information is alleged on belief and what is alleged on information.