Court Opinion

ID: 9663625
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 23:45:34.946551+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:53.860280
License: Public Domain

ERICKSTAD, Judge
(concurring in part and dissenting in part).
I concur in the result but dissent to -that part of the majority opinion which affirms the trial court’s ruling denying Mr. Het-land’s motion for leave to amend his answer to include the defense of usury.
If the rule of civil procedure, that leave to amend pleadings shall be freely given when justice so requires, is to be meaningful, the motion should have been granted.
The majority opinion concedes that this rule should be liberally construed but fails to apply a liberal construction in the instant case.
Text writers agree that construction of the rule should be liberal:
Under this rule leave to amend pleadings should be granted freely when justice so requires and the adverse party will not be prejudiced thereby, to clarify the issues and expedite the disposition of litigation. Indeed it is perhaps no exaggeration to say that the only reason for not allowing an amendment to a pleading is prejudice to the opposing party. What constitutes prejudice must be determined by examination of particular cases in which amendments have been considered; but the test in general seems to be that there must be some harm which the opposing party will suffer from the amendment which he would not have suffered had the original pleading followed the form sought by the amendment. * * * 1A Barron & Holtzoff, Federal Practice and Procedure § 442, at 709-711 (rules ed. 1960).
There was no showing that C.I.T. Corporation as plaintiff would have been irreparably prejudiced by the granting of the motion. The court upon proper application could have permitted a continuance of the case to permit the plaintiff to prepare for the new defense. Upon proper showing it could also have awarded costs to the plaintiff for additional expenses necessitated by the continuance.
A more usual and practical procedure would have been for the court to have postponed its decision on the motion for leave to amend the answer, while permitting testimony to be submitted on the issue (with ruling on the admissibility of testimony to be made later), and to have requested that the parties submit written briefs on the motion. This would not have delayed or interrupted the regular procedure of the trial.
Our Legislature has indicated its view of usury in §§ 47-14-10 and 47-14-11, N.D. C.C. We should be no less concerned than the Legislature in preventing usury. I do not mean to infer that I have determined that usury was committed in the instant case, but I believe it was an issue that shoyjd have been considered and passed upon by the trial court, not merely dismissed from consideration by the ruling on the motion.
I therefore believe that the trial court abused its discretion in denying the motion for leave to amend the answer to include the defense of usury.