Court Opinion

ID: 9658445
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 21:00:10.200962+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:55.315405
License: Public Domain

MORGAN, Justice
(concurring specially).
I concur specially because I disagree with the manner in which the majority disposes of the counterclaim issue, although not on the ultimate result.
Appellant commenced this action as an action at law for damages. The appellee responded with certain affirmative defenses and counterclaimed for equitable rescission. Indeed, appellee’s affirmative defense, mutual mistake of fact, appears to be more appropriately dealt with on the equitable side of the court. Certainly, we have always treated the action for rescission by the court under SDCL 21-12 as an equitable action. See, e. g., Main v. Professional and Business Men’s Life Ins. Co., 80 S.D. 288, 122 N.W.2d 865, 867 (1967); Purcell v. International Harvester Co., 37 S.D. 517, 159 N.W. 47 (1916). Although generally we have dispensed with the distinction between actions at law and equitable actions, SDCL 15-6-2, we continue to treat them differently for certain purposes at trial; e. g., a right to a jury trial on the legal side, S.D. Const, art. VI, § 6, and a court trial on the equitable side. How then can we possibly say that a pleading seeking equitable relief is merely an affirmative defense to an action at law?
However, this would not cause me to uphold the trial court’s action in granting judgment for the appellees on the counter*595claim. Admittedly, failure to reply is by statute an admission of the averments in a pleading to which a reply is necessary. SDCL 15-6-8(a). But even táking appel-lee’s averments to be true, I would still reverse the trial judge because the facts do not support the relief requested and granted for all of the reasons so clearly spelled out by the author in the majority opinion. Simply stated, the mistake averred in the counterclaim was not related to a past or present fact. Since, here, this is essential to maintain an action for either equitable or legal rescission, I would join in the majority’s reversal.