Court Opinion

ID: 9543304
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:44:10.376684+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:10:06.816668
License: Public Domain

AREND, Justice
(dissenting).
In Rogge v. Weaver1 I dissented from the court’s ruling regarding Civil Rule *42341(b). In that case I did not consider it appropriate to do more than register a bare dissent since it was not at all clear to me whether the court was merely making suggestions with respect to the administration of the rule or whether the court was holding that the trial court had committed reversible error in interpreting the rule as it did.
In the instant case my brothers clearly hold that when a plaintiff has made out a prima facie case it is reversible error to dismiss his case under Rule 41(b) before the defendant has rested. A trial court may no longer dismiss upon completion of the plaintiff’s case even though it is convinced as the trier of fact that the plaintiff has failed to prove his case by a preponderance of the evidence, or, as in the instant case, even though the trial court is convinced that, notwithstanding plaintiff has made out a prima facie case, plaintiff has shown by a preponderance of his own evidence the existence of facts upon which an affirmative defense was pleaded.
I am not here concerned with the merits of my brothers’ interpretation of the rule. The proper place for such concern is in the exercise of our rule making power, pursuant to which, I might add, the rule was adopted.
The third sentence of Rule 41 (b) reads: “In an action tried by the court without a jury the court as trier of the facts may then determine them and render judgment against the plaintiff or may decline to render any judgment until the close of all the evidence.” (Emphasis supplied.) I do not think it even arguable that the quoted language admits of the gloss placed upon it by the court. It would be euphemistic to characterize the court’s decision as judicial; it is decision by fiat

. 368 P.2d 810 (Alaska, Feb. 6, 1962).