Court Opinion

ID: 9845115
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:15:25.664059+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:15:52.082327
License: Public Domain

ADDENDUM, ON REHEARING
BISTLINE, Justice,
continuing to dissent.
I. As the parties themselves and subscribers to the Idaho Capital Reports will observe, the Court has withdrawn its earlier opinion and issued another which appears to have little change, other than to now agree with Justice Shepard and myself that there was no prejudicial error in the giving of instruction no. 14.
Other than that nothing was gained by the granting of the rehearing, and the loss was another appeal being shoved back on our assembly line. I had hoped that the Court’s new opinion would with logic and reason dispel that which I wrote earlier pointing out that the bank was well aware (better than this Court apparently) of the distinction between that burden of proof which is burden of persuasion and that burden of proof which is actually the burden of going forward. I had hoped that the Court would explain how the giving of instruction no. 23 was prejudicial in any respect, where it is impossible to say that a separate instruction fixing the burden of persuasion was even necessary in this case — where there is neither contention nor record to support a contention that the evidence on damages was in equipoise (which after all is the only time when the burden of persuasion comes into play), and the trial court’s other instructions clearly told the jury the elements which had to be established by a preponderance of all the evidence5 in order for plaintiff to recover. As stated in 31A C.J.S. Evidence § 104a p. 176:
“Proof by either party. The burden of proof is satisfied by actual proof of the facts of which proof is necessary, regard*892less of which party introduces the evidence.”
II. The inconsistency with which the Court disposes of punitive damages is worthy of one further comment. In Jolley v. Puregro, 94 Idaho 702, 496 P.2d 939 (1972), this Court, differently constituted one may be certain, let stand a nominal judgment of $150 upon which the trial judge had fixed $5,000 of punitive damages — which was also let stand. In Yacht Club the bank concedes that the plaintiff is at least entitled to nominal damages, and asked the trial court to so instruct the jury, wanting it limited however to $1.00. It will take a better, or at least more devious, mind than mine to understand on what basis the parties should be required to retry the amount of punitive damages recoverable — concerning which it cannot be honestly said that instructions nos. 22 and 23 would play any part. The only reasoning supplied by the Court’s opinion is shot out of the sky by the Court’s own Jolley v. Puregro. If consistency be the vice of little men, as has been remarked, the Court achieves much virtue today.

. The trial judge in giving the jury the court’s instruction no. 8 gave exactly Idaho Pattern Jury Instruction No. 105:
“INSTRUCTION NO. 8
“Any party who asserts that certain facts existed or exist has the burden of proving those facts.
“When I say that a party has the burden of proof on any proposition, or use the expression, ‘if you find,’ or ‘if you decide,’ I mean you must be persuaded, considering all the evidence in the case, that the proposition on which he has the burden of proof is more probably true than not true.” (Emphasis added.)