Court Opinion

ID: 9709963
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 03:58:38.361791+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:53.083660
License: Public Domain

VERNON R. PEDERSON, Surrogate Judge,
dissenting.
Because the precedent established by this decision could effectively terminate the trial of lawsuits in most of our rural counties, I am compelled to raise an objection. The exception in the statute which assures defendants that lawsuits against them will be tried in the county where they live, should not supersede the purpose of the statute.
I, first, am compelled to indicate my dissatisfaction with the strength and sufficiency of the articulated reasons given by the trial court for changing the venue. There are references to “concerns” and “feelings” relative to factors affecting potential fairness of individual jurors. Nevertheless, the court, without waiting until all potential jurors had been examined, concluded that “I don’t think- any one of those are a key matter, but when you start to look at that whole picture, I think we have some concerns.” Subsequently, the court added “it appears to me in my discretion that it is impossible to impanel a fair and *108impartial jury in this case in Pierce County and I am going to grant the motion for change of venue.”
Most appellate courts have often confronted appellate review of matters “largely in the discretion of the trial court” and have said that that discretion is usually not “unbridled.” It is not a simple procedure to appropriately review a trial court’s subjective evaluations.
Even though we often state that a court abuses its discretion when it acts unreasonably, arbitrarily, or unconscionably, my Lexis research produced nearly a hundred cases which have commented on the propriety of the analogy in every subjective review, of the adage “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” That would soon make law out of every judge’s idiosyncrasies. I still believe that the residents of Pierce County can get a fair trial, but maybe not a perfect trial, in Pierce County, as well as can those nonresidents who find it necessary to sue a resident of Pierce County.