Court Opinion

ID: 9683523
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 13:30:38.378571+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:20:29.660891
License: Public Domain

Dethmees, J.
(dissenting). I am not in accord with Mr. Justice Souris’ position that, in this law action, tried by the judge without a jury, when defendant moved, at the conclusion of plaintiff’s proofs, that the action be dismissed for failure to prove his liability, the judge was required to view the evidence in the light most favorable to plaintiff. I concede that the controlling opinion in Schian v. Bierlein, 369 Mich 219, lends support. I did not agree with it when handed down and do not now. Stolt v. Shalogian, 326 Mich 435, cited therein and containing language seemingly in support, did not actually decide this question but only that the proofs to be considered on review were those which had been adduced prior to defendant’s motion for judgment in his favor and not those afterwards received.
*447In a jury trial a question involved in a motion for directed verdict is whether the opposite party would thereby be deprived of his constitutional right to jury determination of a question of fact if one has been presented by the proofs viewed in the light most favorable to him. When a jury is waived, or not demanded, and the judge sits as trier of the facts, no sensible reason, and certainly no constitutional involvement, exists for splitting the judge into 2 entities, one as determiner of the facts and the other of the law, and then applying different rules, on review, as to the manner in which the evidence is to be viewed, depending on whether his honor is thought to have made his decision in his former or his latter role. When a judge sits in a nonjury law case, he is the trier of the facts. When, as such, he decides, at the conclusion of plaintiff’s proofs, that plaintiff has not proved defendant’s liability, he has decided a fact question. It matters not what terminology defendant happened to employ in his motion for judgment in his favor, nor whether he has rested or intends, after denial of the motion, to go on with his proofs. Accordingly, plaintiff’s proofs on which the trial court has based his decision must be viewed not in the light most favorable to either party but only as to whether they clearly preponderate against the trial court’s finding of fact and decision.
I recognize, as pointed out in Justice Souris’ opinion, that under GCR 1963, 504.2, effective after the date of trial herein, the problem here discussed may not again arise. For this case and others similarly situated, however, I must register a dissent from the idea that when, prior to the effective date of that rule, defendant had made his motion for judgment 'of no cause in this nonjury case “the procedural posture of the case” was the same as in a jury case upon defendant’s motion for a directed verdict. I disagree that defendant should have been “put to his proofs”. *448If the testimonial record, at the conclusion of plaintiff’s proofs, was such that the trial judge could and did find, as a fact, that no liability on defendant’s part had been established by a preponderance of the evidence, defendant was entitled, without benefit of the new rule, to the grant of his motion then made for entry of a judgment of no cause, without his putting in any proofs whatsoever.
The judgment should be affirmed. Costs to defendant.
Kelly and O’Hara, JJ., concurred with Dethmers, J.