Court Opinion

ID: 9667593
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:50:19.988078+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:39.236628
License: Public Domain

MORGAN, Justice
(concurring specially).
I concur in the majority opinion and write specially only to point out that with respect to the libel action I think this was an inappropriate instance for the grant of summary judgment as per our previous *610holding in Wilson v. Great Northern Railway Company, 83 S.D. 207, 157 N.W.2d 19 (1968).
While the pleadings put the authorship of the letter in dispute, on a motion for summary judgment the defense shifted to the issue of the nature of the letter as libelous per se or per quod and the issue of privilege and malice. This presumes that appellee wrote the letter. The trial court apparently presumed that, because its ruling was restricted to the determination that the letter was not libelous per se and was qualifiedly privileged, no facts supported a showing of malice.
It is apparently agreed that the letter was libelous per se and qualifiedly privileged. The issue is, were there facts that showed malice. As I read the majority opinion there were, because the trial court had before it the statement of the author that she did not know anything about the facts of the crime. Her case cannot rise above her own admission. To write such a letter without knowledge of the facts to connect the appellants with the crime is malicious. That statement and the reasonable inferences to be drawn from it most favorable to the nonmoving party * were before the trial court at the time of the motion for summary judgment. It is no more conjecture on what will be produced at trial than any other testimony or affidavit in support of, or opposition to, any motion for summary judgment. It certainly is not in the category of “possible evidence,” that might be produced at trial, that we rejected recently in Kohlman v. Cahill, 301 N.W.2d 664 (S.D.1981).

 Marts v. Sutton, 275 N.W.2d 357 (S.D.1979); Stricker v. Swift Bros. Construction, 260 N.W.2d 500 (S.D.1977).