Court Opinion

ID: 9847444
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:59:56.49387+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:17:12.280916
License: Public Domain

BISTLINE, Justice,
concurring and specially concurring.
I.
Because this appeal has presented the first opportunity to revisit Dinneen v. Finch, and hence is of more than ordinary importance, I write only to agree with the remarks of Justice Bakes in his separate opinion where he writes that in considering a motion for new trial, or alternatively for a remittitur or additur, as the case may be, the trial court first weighs the evidence on damages and then compares the jury’s award to what he would have given in a court trial. “If the disparity is so great that it appears to the trial court that the award was given under the influence of passion or prejudice, the verdict ought not stand.” Bakes, J., 109 Idaho at 284, 707 P.2d at 395. This is exactly the main holding of Dineen, 100 Idaho at 625, headnote 5, 603 P.2d at 580, a 4-1 decision with Justice Bakes voting with the majority. Today’s opinion for the Court better might have more clearly pointed out that defendant’s motion for a new trial in the district court was premised on both Rule 59(a)(5) as well as Rule 59(a)(6).
The defendant’s brief in arguing the applicability of Rule 59(a)(5) and Dineen falls far short of the accuracy attained in Justice Bakes’ remarks. Defendant’s contention urged upon us is only that “The trial court must overturn the jury award if there is a great disparity between that award and the amount of damages which, in the court’s view, the evidence would have supported.” Appellant’s Brief, p. 36. At page 39, defendant urges that “the record shows that the amount of damages awarded in this case was unjust and excessive as a matter of law.” (Emphasis added.) That is not at all the rule in Dineen. Rather, the defendant’s obligation was to convince this Court that the trial court erred in not finding a disparity so great as between what it would have awarded in a court trial as compared to the jury award, to suggest that the jury bolted the traces of reality and awarded excessive damages out of passion or prejudice. As stated in Dineen, and recognized at page 36 of appellant’s brief, it is the Supreme Court which can interfere with damages when the excess or inadequacy appears as a matter of law. 100 Idaho at 626, 603 P.2d at 581. Apparently, defendant failed to grasp all that was written under headnote 5 on pp. 625-26, 603 P.2d at 580-81.
II.
The defendant conceded that the trial court did engage in the weighing process, and then adds that “the court gave absolutely no weight to any of the objective factors which demonstrated the absence of any relationship between respondent and his daughter.” Appellant’s Brief, p. 36. Those factors are found painstakingly repeated in the opinion for the Court. Defendant simply argues that the trial court didn’t weigh the evidentiary factors as defendant would have it done, and preferred that the jury likewise would have done.
Where the defendant himself concedes that the trial court did enter into the Dineen opinion weighing and comparing process, in addressing a Rule 59(a)(5) motion, not readily understood is the basis on which Justice Bakes writes that he would reverse the trial judge for not following the directives of Dineen. The trial judge, who wrote, as Justice Bakes quotes him, that in upholding the verdict, i.e., denying the motion, he “has had the opportunity to weigh the demeanor, credibility and testimony of witnesses and the persuasiveness of all the evidence ,..”1 will be much surprised to *286learn that one member of the Court sees implicit in that statement the admission that the opportunity was eschewed! Contrariwise, most will see the statement as tantamount to saying that the evidence was weighed just as it would have been in a trial to the court, and no so great disparity was found to exist as to suggest the influence of jury passion or prejudice.2 As I read Justice Bakes, the complaint he makes is based wholly upon his semantical view that for the trial court to write that it had the opportunity to weigh the evidence is not to say that he did weigh the evidence. The trial bench and bar may find that bit of sophistry hard to swallow, especially those who recognize the trial judge as one of Idaho’s most able jurists, if not the most able.

. A worthwhile exercise is to compare this choice of language with language from Dineen:
A trial court in a jury trial hears exactly the same evidence as the jury hears, and makes his own inward assessments of credibility and weight. So, when after a trial the jury returns a verdict which is thereafter assailed, either as excessive or as inadequate, the trial court’s *286judgment is then called into play, requiring of him a weighing of the evidence. ...
"[T]he trial judge was in a position to see and hear the witnesses speak. He could observe their demeanor on the witness stand, and consequently was in a better position to judge their credibility and to weigh their testimony than is this court____” (Emphasis added)
Rosenberg v. Toetly, 93 Idaho 135, 138-139, 456 P.2d 779, 782-783 (1969).
Dineen, supra, 100 Idaho at 624-25, 603 P.2d at 579-80 (emphasis original).

. In Bentziger v. McMurtrey, 100 Idaho 273, 596 P.2d 785 (1979), although the plaintiffs motion for new trial, or alternatively for additur, was based on rule 59(a)(5) as well as upon 59(a)(6), the opinion for the Court avoided discussion or dealing with the proper rule to be applied. See separate opinion of Bakes, J., 100 Idaho at 274, 596 P.2d at 186. For that reason it has little, if any, application to this case. I mention it only in aid of clarification.