Court Opinion

ID: 9528851
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:44:47.241927+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:27:24.604843
License: Public Domain

Finley, J.
(dissenting) — A legend, for all to see and know, graven in granite above the classic Doric columns and the emblazoned bronze doors of the entrance to the Supreme Court Building, reads: “Temple of Justice.” Today, the last word of this hopeful, idealistic legend seems to me faded and at least somewhat obscured. In effect, another word symbol seems to overlay the word, “Justice,” and perhaps it may be said the legend now seems to read: “Temple of Technicality.”
The ersatz word is equally dramatic and evocative, but considerably less hopeful and idealistic. The change has been wrought, not in granite. The transmutation is one of spirit and mind inherent in the judging function and the nature of the judicial process, brought about by the last few words, “judgment of dismissal .... affirmed,” of the decision reached by a majority of the court in the instant case.
The decision and judicial function in the instant matter involves a problem of statutory interpretation inhering in a statute describing the manner in which tort claimants are to prepare and file a notice of claim when seeking redress for negligent harm inflicted by an agency or agents of a county government. The problem basically involves ascertainment of the purpose or intent and the judicial effect to be given to the legislation involved. The most that can or I think should be said of the particular legislation is that it requires reasonable information and notice be given to county commissioners of tort claims. No purpose whatsoever is served in stressing technicalities in this connection. Full effect can be given to the statutory enactment by answering the simple question of whether the county was in any way prejudiced in the investigation, the handling, or the defense of the tort claims by the failure to “dot the *734i’s and cross the t’s” in a notice of claim filed and presented for the erudition of the county commissioners. I daresay that many, if not most, legislators who participated in the enactment of the statute would be surprised, even shocked, by the purely technical attributes, the scope, the unnecessary effect, and the harsh result accorded to the statute by the interpretation placed upon it by the court majority in evaluating and reviewing the decision of the trial judge.
I have signed Judge Hale’s dissent in both Nelson v. Dunkin and in Green v. Dunkin. The thesis of the dissents by Judge Hale seems to me logically and rationally quite unanswerable. The result thus advocated as to both cases, in my judgment, superbly serves the ends of justice and, hence, is quite consistent with the legend, “Temple of Justice.”