Court Opinion

ID: 9724023
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 10:41:52.760722+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:54.476657
License: Public Domain

MESCHKE, Justice,
concurring.
I concur in the result. I am less certain than the majority that Schaefer could procedurally raise a defense after the jury verdict. The new question of the extent of Reise-nauer’s “secured person” receipt of basic no-fault benefits paid or to become payable was not raised in the pleadings. Since no question of jurisdiction or failure to state a claim is presented, this ruling does little or nothing to further the underlying policy of no-fault statutes that are designed to remove most motor vehicle-accident claims from the court-administered tort system.
Schaefer did not plead a no-fault threshold question, nor did he object to Reisenauer’s proof of economic damages, nor did he ask the court to consider a no-fault limitation until after the jury verdict. “Every defense, in law or fact, to a claim for relief in any pleading, whether a claim, counterclaim, cross-claim, or third-party claim, must be asserted in the responsive pleading thereto if one is required,” except for certain important claims that can be presented by motion “made before pleading if a further pleading is permitted.” N.D.R.Civ.P. 12(b). Every defense is waived “if it is neither made by motion under this rule nor included in a *158responsive pleading or an amendment thereof permitted by Rule 15(a) to be made as a matter of course.” N.D.R.Civ.P. 12(h). Failure to object to evidence during trial ordinarily waives any right to object to that evidence later. N.D.R.Ev. 108(a) (“Error may not be predicated upon a ruling which admits ... evidence unless a substantial right of the party is affected and (1) Objection. In case the ruling is one admitting evidence, a timely objection or motion to strike appears of record, stating the specific ground of objection, if the specific ground was not apparent from the context;_”). In this case, the trial court should have denied Schaefer’s very belated post-trial motion raising a new defense.
Still, the remand for correct determination of the factual question does substantial justice. For that reason, I concur in the result.
SANDSTROM, J., concurs.