Court Opinion

ID: 9541772
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:28:32.057209+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:04:38.367192
License: Public Domain

BISTLINE, Justice,
concurring in the reversal of the judgment below and the remand for further proceedings.
When we heard oral argument in this case I thought, “What a pity that not one other member of the Court utilized the opportunity to correct the law as Chief Justice Donaldson and myself undertook to do in the specially concurring opinion in Keenan v. Brooks, 100 Idaho 823, 606 P.2d 473 (1980).” Had one other justice taken the time to verify the mishappenstance of McNabb v. Brewster, 75 Idaho 313, 272 P.2d 298 (1954), the law would have been straightened out over six years ago.
At an early time after my appeamace on the Court rather than before it, in Englesby v. Nisula, 99 Idaho 21, 576 P.2d 1055 (1978), I sensed that Justice Shepard had never been enchanted by the McNabb case:
However, McNabb was strongly criticized in Kelley v. Wheyland, 93 Idaho 735, 471 P.2d 590 (1970), and it was suggested that the McNabb ruling governing a shift of the burden of proof to the grantee only had validity under circumstances similar to those of McNabb. Id. at 23, 576 P.2d at 1057.
My thirst whetted, I turned to the Kelley opinion which Justice Shepard had also authored:
We point out initially that the case of McNabb v. Brewster, supra, is almost unique in Idaho jurisprudence for several reasons. First, there is no actual agreement of a majority of the court on disposition of the case, and secondly, we do not believe that the portion of Brewster relied upon by appellant herein was either necessary or appropriate to the decision in Brewster. In Brewster an elderly couple was infirm, senile, unable to care for themselves, and could neither read *740nor write. All of the property of the elderly couple was deeded to a daughter because she otherwise refused to care for them. The deed was conditioned upon her obligation to care for her parents for the remainder of their lives. The opinion of the court in Brewster stated at 75 Idaho 317, 272 P.2d 300:
“The evidence is sufficient to justify cancellation of the deed on the ground of Mrs. Brewster’s neglect and refusal to care for the decedents [her parents].”
The court then, however, proceeded to discuss a rule indicating that the existence of a fiduciary relationship between the grantor and grantee, coupled with a lack of consideration for the conveyance, placed upon the grantee the burden of establishing that the transaction was fair, just and free from any taint of fraud or undue influence. Kelley, supra, 93 Idaho at 737-38, 471 P.2d at 592-93.
In authoring the Court’s opinion in Keenan, Justice Shepard again voiced dissatisfaction with McNabb, but reached the decision that the judgment below could be affirmed on the law of Gmeiner v. Yacte, 100 Idaho 1, 592 P.2d 57, 63 (1979), that:
a close scrutiny of the entire record and an analysis of the result of the execution of the gift deed supports the findings and conclusions of the trial court that the evidence did not give rise to a presumption of undue influence. Keenan, supra, 100 Idaho at 826, 606 P.2d at 476.
It seemed to me that if McNabb was as inherently unreliable, as Justice Shepard wrote whenever the occasion arose, and with strong recollection of that which Justice Donaldson had written for the Court in Cole-Collister Fire Protection District v. City of Boise, 93 Idaho 558, 468 P.2d 290 (1970), then McNabb should be revisited, which was not a monumental effort. I explained in my Keenan opinion that McNabb’s fault was only in having applied California case law which was guilty of “interchangeably using ‘burden of proof’ and ‘burden of producing evidence,’ but in so doing they were aware that they were not shifting the burden of persuasion....” and concluded that “McNabb should henceforth be read as standing for the proposition that it is the burden of going forward sufficiently to dispel the presumption which shifts — not the burden of persuasion.” Keenan, supra, 100 Idaho at 828, 606 P.2d at 478.
Obviously, Justice Huntley would have joined that opinion. His today’s opinion primarily is based on the same authority, and it is a shame that he was not aboard the Court at an earlier date. Three votes six years ago would have narrowed McNabb to its proper confines, which Justice Shepard was clearly in favor of doing, but did not vote for when the opportunity was there.