Court Opinion

ID: 9885779
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-06 13:28:03.23871+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:48:57.519385
License: Public Domain

Me. Justice Bouck
dissenting.
I find myself unable to agree with the majority opinion.
The action purports to be for malicious prosecution. The defendants are a United States district judge, a former United States district attorney, his assistant, and five other members of the Colorado bar, all in good standing.
The plaintiff in error was tried and convicted in the United States district court on a charge of violating the bankruptcy law of the United States.
A perusal of the record, including all the pleadings, together with a careful consideration of the briefs and arguments herein, convinces me that the trial court was right in striking the amended complaint from the files and entering judgment against the plaintiff in error.
1. The assignments of error required by our rule 32 are lacking. We therefore have no right to consider the alleged errors complained of. True, rule 35, which has stood in this court and in the territorial Supreme Court over sixty-four years, says: “ * Counsel will be confined to a discussion of the errors stated, but the court may, in its discretion, notice any other error appearing of record.” Surely this does not apply in a purely private controversy, so as to result in our granting to one private litigant special privileges which are denied to another. It would be different in a case publiei *56juris, and probably tbe discretion should be exercised in favor of a criminal defendant when a really prejudicial error has not been properly assigned. However, in numerous cases both civil and criminal we have refused to exercise tbis extraordinary power, and have insisted upon tbe clear and specific assignments provided for by rule 32, — sometimes even when human liberty or life itself was at stake. To cite only a few of tbis court’s recent decisions: Denver v. Schmid, 98 Colo. 32, 56 P. (2d) 388; Gibson v. Neikirk, 98 Colo. 389, 56 P. (2d) 487; Ohio Cas. Ins. Co. v. Colorado Co., 97 Colo. 541, 51 P. (2d) 591; Moffat Coal Co. v. Cometa, 97 Colo. 573, 51 P. (2d) 593; Cunningham v. Snelling, 91 Colo. 454, 15 P. (2d). 713. See also tbe many Colorado eases cited in tbe foregoing. When a layman acts as bis own attorney, tbe general rule should not be relaxed, especially where, as here, there is strong intrinsic evidence that the plaintiff in error bas bad tbe continued advice and assistance of one or more skilled and experienced attorneys.
2. Tbe amended complaint is palpably insufficient to state a cause of action in malicious prosecution. Beading into tbe pleading tbe things of which judicial notice is taken, we find here a complex and nebulous mass of evidentiary matters, legal conclusions, and mere opinions which is wholly inadequate. Statements about tbe duties of grand and petit juries, of receivers in bankruptcy, and of other public officers are distorted and contrary to common knowledge. Tbe performance of ordinary functions by tbe official defendants are charged here as acts constituting malicious prosecution when tbe very allegations belie tbe charges, and stamp tbe acts complained of as within tbe lawful province of tbe public officers. Tbis is true of tbe alleged rulings of tbe United States District Judge in admitting and excluding evidence, in passing upon tbe sufficiency of tbe indictment, in giving instructions to tbe jury, in granting and revoking probation or parole, in committing a defendant to a psychopathic hospital, and in refusing to set a defendant at large on *57bail after conviction. Tbe errors extend to tbe descrip-' tion and interpretation of the procedure in obtaining and issuing a pardon, and to the statements of the legal meaning and effect thereof. As against the presumptions of official regularity and official honesty, there should be no consciously liberal indulgence granted to a layman where exactly similar conduct by an attorney when acting for some other layman who is no more or less deserving than the plaintiff in error would bring upon such lay client the penalty properly visited by necessary rules of orderly procedure. We ought not to have one set of rules in one case and condone wholesale departure from all rules in another.
The record here shows an apparently flagrant failure to comply with a reasonable order requiring a more specific statement of matters attempted to be pleaded, including alleged perjury inadequately set forth. That failure came after a previous order for the same purpose had proved futile. The striking of the amended complaint from the files in such circumstances was well within the discretion of the trial court. If such a penalty were visited upon a layman represented by an attorney, it would not be questioned; there is no justice in withholding the same penalty here., where the trial court has deliberately reached the conclusion that the penalty should be imposed. The judicial ideal should be “equal and exact justice” for all.
I submit that the lower court, in finally striking from the files the amended complaint which the plaintiff had twice refused to amplify as ordered, did the only thing a trial court can do in such a case to enforce the self-respect of the tribunal and to do justice between litigants. It seems to me that the exercise of a sound discretion on the part of the. court below is manifest from the record.
For the reasons stated I dissent.