Court Opinion

ID: 9530303
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:58:57.117313+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:04.302660
License: Public Domain

McFADDEN, Justice,
specially concurring.
I join the majority’s holding that the district court’s decision to order a trial de novo is not appealable before this court. I reach this conclusion notwithstanding the fact that the district court’s order is encumbered with language which suggests that the court was conducting an appellate review. The last two paragraphs of the order read as follows:
“After reviewing the entire record in this matter, and the applicable law, it appears that determinations of the magistrate regarding the nature of the property in question, and the resultant disposition thereof by that court, was in error as not being supported by substantial evidence and not in conformity with applicable law. The magistrates [sic] decision is therefore reversed.
Under the circumstances, and in the interest of justice, this Court will exercise its statutory discretion and grant a trial de novo in district court. I.C. § 1-2213.
In my view, this evident confusion of the district court concerning the precise nature of its review cannot change the fact that its ultimate act was to order a trial de novo. The effect of such an act, as the majority notes, is to wipe the slate clean, so that the trial in district court commences as if initiated there. See I.R.C.P. 83(u)(2):
“(2) Upon an appeal from the magistrates division of the district court . involving a trial de novo . . . the district court shall render a decision in the action as a trial court as though the matter was initially brought in the district court. (Emphasis added.)
The district court’s “reversal” is thus mere surplusage; and on such a state of the record there exists no final judgment from which appeal may be taken to this court. I.A.R. 11.
Even were such an appeal permitted by our rules, entertaining it would almost always be disadvantageous. The decision to grant a trial de novo indicates that the district court found the existing record inconclusive in one respect or another; conducting the trial de novo affords the district court the opportunity to create a record of substance, and measurably increases the chance that we will be presented with a meaningful record on appeal should the trial de novo not resolve the issues to the parties’ satisfaction.
The current version of I.R.C.P. 83(j), effective May 1, 1979, and not in effect at the time the appeal to the district court was taken in this case, goes a long way toward preventing the sort of confusion generated by the district court’s order in this case. This rule requires the district court to decide whether to conduct an appellate review or to grant a trial de novo, to make this *276decision within 21 days of the filing of the notice of appeal, and to enter an order specifically setting out the decision.
I assume that the new I.R.C.P. 83(j) would not remove the discretion of the district court to proceed with an appellate review, and upon finding the record incomplete or confused, to order a trial de novo. E. g., Koester v. Koester, 99 Idaho 654, 586 P.2d 1370 (1978). But the drafters apparently recognized the difficulties which confusion on this issue can generate, and the new rule encourages a clear and early statement of the type of review undertaken by the district court.