Court Opinion

ID: 9509983
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 21:51:15.40806+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:07:55.302905
License: Public Domain

*338JUSTICE LEAPHART
specially concurring.
In pointing out that there are only three votes to reverse Kenyon, Justice Gray’s special concurrence characterizes the present decision as a “plurality” decision. That is not an accurate characterization of our holding in this case. Including the special concurrences of Justice Nelson and Justice Gray,1 there are five votes for the new test adopted in the present case. Thus, as to the adoption of that test, there is clearly a majority. Those same five Justices, however, disagree as to what effect the new test has on the test previously enunciated in Kenyon. No more than three Justices were able to agree on any one characterization. That is, has Kenyon been overruled, clarified or modified? As is apparent from the opinion, three of the Justices did agree that, since the Court had changed Kenyon both procedurally and substantively, Kenyon was, in effect, overruled. The disagreement as to how the result in this opinion affects Kenyon, does not alter the fact that, in the final analysis, a majority of the Court has adopted a new test which replaces the Kenyon test.

.1 have resisted the temptation to count my own special concurrence as yet another vote for the opinion.