Court Opinion

ID: 9621889
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 06:08:35.666211+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:16:39.975746
License: Public Domain

On Denial of Petition for Rehearing
DONALDSON, Justice.
The appellant (Boise City) has submitted a petition for rehearing and urges that an “unwarranted” burden has been placed upon Boise City to prove that the erection of a filling station would interfere with the goals articulated by the applicable statutes and ordinances.
It is evident that appellant (Boise City) has misconstrued our opinion and we will therefore strive to make our reasoning as set forth therein, absolutely clear.
In our system of law and jurisprudence two distinct meanings can be denoted by the singular term “burden of proof.” Firstly, “burden of proof” refers to the “risk of nonpersuasion of the trier of the facts.”
“Wherever in human affairs a question of the existence or nonexistence of a fact is to be decided by somebody, there is the possibility that the decider, or trier of the fact, may at the end of his deliberations be in doubt on the question submittted to. *569him. On all the material before him, he may,. for example, regard the existence or nonexistence of the fact as equally 'likely — a matter in equipoise. If/ now, the trier is operating under a system which requires him to decide the question one way or the other, then to avoid ■caprice that system must furnish him with a rule for deciding the question when he finds his mind in this kind of •doubt or equipoise. Where the parties to a civil action are in dispute over a material issue of fact, then that party who will lose if the trier’s mind is in equipoise may be said to bear the' risk that the trier will not be affirmatively persuaded or the risk of nonpersuasion upon that issue.” Fleming, James, Civil Procedure, § 7.6.
The risk of non-persuasion of the trier of the facts never shifts throughout the various stages of the trial. Generally the party asserting the claim bears the “risk of the nonpersuasion of the trier of the fact.” In the case at bar, Cole-Collister (plaintiff-respondent) bore the “risk ■of the nonpersuasion of the trier of the fact” that the zoning ordinance was arbitrary and capricious as applied to it. This risk it bore from the start of the trial to its •end regardless of how many times the “burden of producing evidence” shifted. ColeCollister bore the risk that it would lose the case if when all the evidence was in the trier of the fact was in doubt as to the validity of the ordinance.
The concept of burden of proof •can also refer to “production of evidence." At the beginning of the trial in the instant ■case, the plaintiff-respondent, Cole-Collister bore the “burden of proof” to show that the zoning ordinance in question was invalid. In order to do this the plaintiff-respondent (Cole-Collister) had to introduce evidence to overcome the presumption of validity attached to the ordinance. This presumption is not conclusive and may be overcome by clear and convincing evidence such as was presented by Cole-Collister in this case. White v. City of Twin Falls, 81 Idaho 176, 338 P.2d 778 (1959) ; City of Lewiston v.
Mathewson, 78 Idaho 347, 303 P.2d 680 (1956); Boise City v. Better Homes, Inc., 72 Idaho 441, 243 P.2d 303 (1952). Once the presumption of validity was overcome, the burden of proof shifted to Boise City to produce evidence tending to show that the erection of a filling station would in fact interfere with the goals articulated by the regulations in question. Having lost the aid of the presumption of validity attached to its zoning ordinance, Boise City still had an opportunity to show in fact, i. e., by producing evidence, that its zoning ordinance was valid. The burden placed on Boise City was by no means unwarranted. Boise City however produced little or no evidence, nor did it successfully discredit the evidence submitted by the property owner.
Rehearing denied.