Court Opinion

ID: 9549086
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:13:00.64159+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:19:48.869944
License: Public Domain

BROWN, Justice,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur in Part I of the majority opinion; I dissent from Part II.
I agree with the majority’s decision to reverse the award of $57,250 to appellees in order to restore the groundwater to its condition before the oil spill. Section 35-11-902(a), W.S.1977, Cum.Supp.1982, authorizes “any person having an interest which is or may be adversely affected” to initiate an action in order to force compliance with the Wyoming Environmental Quality Act, § 35-11-101 et seq., W.S.1977. Section 35-ll-902(c), W.S.1977, Cum.Supp.1982, requires a party suing under the act to give 60 days’ written notice to the Department of Environmental Quality, as well as the alleged violator, before commencing the suit.
Here, appellees had not perfected any right to appropriate the groundwater affected by the oil spill. Accordingly, they were not persons having “an interest adversely affected” by the oil spill. As a result, they did not come within the scope of § 35-ll-902(a), supra, and could not institute an action under that subsection.1 I see no need to address appellees’ failure to comply with the notice provisions of § 35-ll-902(c), supra, since it only amounts to dicta in light of the failure to satisfy subsection (a).
I would further note that § 35-11-902(g), W.S.1977, Cum.Supp.1982, which provides that the act in no way limits any previously existing cause of action, is not involved here. Again, appellees had no interest in the groundwater at the time of the spill. Accordingly, any damage to the water could not have created a cause of action in their behalf.
Where I differ is with the majority’s decision to reverse the judgment as to the $40,-000 awarded in compensation for damage to the land. The issue on appeal concerns the sufficiency of the evidence to support the $40,000 award made by the jury. Though I do understand the majority’s surprise at *519such a large award for three acres in rural Campbell County, I believe the basis upon which it reverses sets bad precedent for the future. This court should be more concerned about the precedent it sets than the result in a particular case.
Here, the majority finds insufficient evidence to support the verdict only after determining that the opinion of appellees’ expert was incompetent. This conclusion is reached because the expert on cross-examination said at one point he could not find a buyer for a ranchette subject to the terms of an existing lease. First, I would note that during the exchange in the transcript the expert also said he could find a buyer. The transcript is very confusing there, and it is hard to know what the witness meant to say when all we have is the cold transcript. Besides, where conflicts exist in testimony this court must resolve those conflicts in favor of the prevailing party. Farella v. Rumney, Wyo., 649 P.2d 185 (1982). The majority here ignores that maxim.
Second, no objection was made at any time to the expert’s testimony. On appeal, appellant has challenged the competency of the evidence, but I believe it is too late to make such an attack. In Coronado Oil Company v. Grieves, Wyo., 642 P.2d 423 (1982), we reversed because of the admission of incompetent expert testimony; but there the majority opinion noted that the appellant had “vigorously objected throughout the trial to such testimony.” 642 P.2d at 438. Here, that simply is not the case.
By its failure to object to the competency of the testimony, the appellant waived its claim of error in that regard. The reason for this rule is to require the parties to give the trial judge a chance to remove the error at trial and to avoid protracted litigation. By its decision the majority is undermining that policy. The door is now open to all future litigants who fail to timely object to expert testimony to raise a sufficiency-of-the-evidence issue challenging the competency of experts. This court in the future will be deluged by such claims, not only in civil cases, but criminal cases as well. I am certain that the court will not be sympathetic to those future litigants unless it is dissatisfied with the jury verdict and searching for a way to reverse.
I believe that since there was no objection to the competency of the expert’s testimony, the disclosures on cross-examination must be held as going only to the weight to be given the testimony. The expert’s opinion concerning the before and after values was given credence by the jurors who awarded damages in the amount he prescribed. In these circumstances we must find sufficient evidence was present to support the jury’s verdict.
Finally, I wish to take issue with the majority’s assertion that “there are other errors of such a serious nature that they may constitute plain error.” The doctrine of plain error encompasses those errors which are obvious, and which, if uncorrected, would be an affront to the integrity and reputation of the judicial proceedings and result in a miscarriage of justice. In the Matter of C.L.T., Alaska, 597 P.2d 518 (1979); and City of Nome v. Ailak, Alaska, 570 P.2d 162 (1977).
Where no objection is made at the time error occurred, a new trial may be ordered only if that error arises to the level of plain or fundamental error. To constitute such error, it must possess a clear capacity to bring about an unjust result which goes to the very heart of a party’s case. United Farm Bureau Family Life Insurance Company v. Fultz, 176 Ind.App. 217, 375 N.E.2d 601 (1978); and Croy v. Bacon Transport Company, Okl., 604 P.2d 136 (1979).
The plain error doctrine error is almost exclusively a criminal concept and is used sparingly in civil cases. Croy v. Bacon Transport Company, supra. Plain error and harmless error are defined in Rule 49(b), Wyoming Rules of Criminal Procedure: “Plain errors or defects affecting substantial rights may be noticed although they were not brought to the attention of the court.” Rule 7.05, Wyoming Rules of Appellate Procedure, using Rule 49(b), W.R. Cr.P., as the source also defines plain error in an identical fashion. Rule 61, Wyoming Rules of Civil Procedure, defines harmless *520error for civil cases; however, the rule does not address plain error. In fact, plain error is mentioned nowhere in the Rules of Civil Procedure.
This difference is also found between the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and it was noted in Wright and Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure: Civil § 2883 (1973). There it was observed that, despite the omission from the civil rules, plain error was occasionally held available in civil cases. However, the indication was that the standard for plain error in civil cases is much more stringent than in criminal cases.
Generally, plain error has not been applied in civil matters. However, the failure of subject matter jurisdiction receives plain error treatment in that no objection is necessary to preserve it. Also, the deprivation of property without due process of law may on occasion be treated as plain error; but, generally it must be an extreme case.
In the present case, the trial court clearly had subject matter jurisdiction. Further, no obvious violations of appellant’s constitutional nor statutory rights occurred. Under the most liberal view of the plain error doctrine I cannot see its applicability to the-case here.
I do not believe it is proper for this court to address “incidental questions which are found [likely] to arise again in the case at a new trial” when no one has raised the “questions” in the first place. I believe the majority, when it addresses those “incidental questions,” is subverting the most basic appellate rules against giving advisory opinions. I cannot agree with such a practice.
For these reasons I would have affirmed in part and reversed in part and only addressed the issues actually raised by the parties.

. I am satisfied that the attorney general, as the representative for the people of the State of Wyoming, is the proper party to maintain this action. This is particularly so in light of the unusual order entered by the district court requiring the $57,250 to be paid into the registry of the court, so that the court could ensure the money actually was spent on the clean-up of the groundwater. It makes so much more sense for the money to be paid to the State, and for the State, through the Department of Environmental Quality, to administer the funds, than for the district court to be concerned with such matters.