Court Opinion

ID: 9545516
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:14:33.080161+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:15:00.892064
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Pringle
specially concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I concur in that portion of the majority opinion which holds that one does not have the right to a jury trial on defenses sounding in law where the action brought by the complainant sounds in equity.
I dissent from that portion of the opinion which denies a right to a jury trial to one who interposes a counterclaim sounding in law to an action sounding in equity. I recognize that Tiger Placers Co. v. Fisher, 98 Colo. 221, 54 P. (2d) 891, is contrary to my view, but I would overrule that case and bring this state into line with the doctrine enunciated by the federal courts in applying Federal Rule 38, the source from which our Rule 38 emanates. See 5 Moore’s Federal Practice 2d Ed., p. 145 ff and the cases collected thereunder, where it is said at page 146:
“* * * no waiver of jury trial results from the interposition of a ‘legal’ counterclaim, whether compulsory or permissive, in a civil action which is essentially equitable, nor from the interposition of both a ‘legal’ and an ‘equitable’ counterclaim.
“Actually there is no dispute as to the above principles. * * *”
I would have no hesitancy in overruling Tiger, supra, since what is involved here is a procedural and not a *134substantive matter, and the plaintiff can, therefore, claim no vested right to have the counterclaim tried by the court by reason of that case.
In my view, neither a plaintiff nor a defendant should be deprived of the opportunity to have matters set up in a counterclaim which sound wholly in law determined by a jury of his peers because the plaintiff brought the original action against the defendant as a suit in equity.