Court Opinion

ID: 9605551
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:38:41.523309+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:28.720109
License: Public Domain

HENRIOD, Justice
(concurring) :
This seems to be a case where a friend of a friend, to recover money paid on a purchase having a citric result, deigns to devilize his erstwhile comrade, — which plaintiff urges may be compensable. But the pleadings and the proof under the discovery process fail to show an issue of fact, triable under any principle of preponderance of or clear and convincing proof of fraud.
Plaintiff says the case should be decided under the rules that: 1) the evidence should be viewed in a light favorable to the plaintiff; because 2) a summary judgment is a harsh rule.
This author wishes to state and emphasize that he does not ask or expect any concurrence to or advocacy by any of my colleagues to this pure dictum that as to 1) the rule enunciated by this court and elsewhere makes little logic since, if we must review the facts in a light more favorable to somebody or other, there must be an issue of fact that must be reviewed, and which, under a summary judgment contemplates no such issue since there is nothing to review because the pleadings and discovery process show this absence of a fact issue. It seems inconsistent under syllogistic reasoning that if there is no genuine issue of fact there is nothing which a court should weigh, — because there is nothing to weigh — in a light more, or most, or less favorable to anyone; and as to 2) that a summary judgment is a harsh remedy, the simple answer is that if it is an unfair rule to put into the advertised simple rules of procedure to expedite matters, eliminate harsh rules and provide for the common defense, it should be abolished. All of this has led to ten volumes of Barron & Holt-zoff and about the same number of Moore’s Federal Practice that try to explain these simple rules. The Field Code made much more sense.
The summary judgment in this case gropingly seems to follow the old practice of special and general demurrers, — and under that practice and the so-called “new” rules, the judgment in this case, makes pretty good judicial sense, — prompting me to concur in the opinion of the author of the main opinion. This, with a bit of tongue in cheek, since I concurred in some of the generalities cited in the main opinion anent “harshness” of summary judgments, — for which I am a supplicant for repentance. It is not a harsh rule, but perhaps a salutary one, if properly administered. The harshness of it simply lies in its occasional obvious abuse.