Court Opinion

ID: 9743034
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:24:31.628172+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:38.723384
License: Public Domain

HENDERSON, Justice
(concurring in result).
Recently, in my concurring in part, dissenting in part opinion in Martin v. Martin, 358 N.W.2d 793, 802 (S.D.1984), I indicated that a party is bound by their testimony. It was very relevant to the issue at hand. I cited 30 Am.Jur.2d Evidence § 1087 (1967) and Miller v. Stevens, 63 S.D. 10, 256 N.W. 152 (1934). In Martin, the wife testified that she did not foresee any future medical needs; therefore, she was not physically restricted from employment and she was bound by her testimony. Her case should not have been able to rise above her testimony. In Connelly v. Sherwood, 268 N.W.2d 140, 141 (S.D.1978), we expressed that “[i]t is settled law in South Dakota that a party to a lawsuit cannot claim the benefit of a version of relevant facts more favorable to his own contentions than he has given in his own testimony.” Here, the scaffolding did not collapse per plaintiff’s own testimony; rather, it wobbled or tipped when the light fixture was moved to the top of the scaffolding. We have no suggestion in the record that there was any geophysical defect in the scaffolding and plaintiff’s own version of the facts is that he has no information of any problem with the erection of the scaffolding. Moreover, plaintiff testified he did not fall but, rather, he jumped. Thus, his cause of action cannot rise above his own testimony. Estopped is his counsel from raising a material issue of fact advocating a conclusion to the contrary.