Court Opinion

ID: 9518568
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 00:56:05.476607+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:29:34.916746
License: Public Domain

BIEGELMEIER, J.
(dissenting). Because the traffic ordinances were not introduced in evidence, the .majority opinion, in accord with prior decisions of this court, concludes the court’s instruction as to a left turn was not prejudicial error. This is on the reasoning that (1) the ordinance does not authorize a left turn, (2) therefore does not permit it, (3) that it does in fact prohibit it; therefore violation of the ordinance was negligence.
If the ordinance does not prohibit the left turn it was prejudicial error to give the instruction as this court has recently indicated In Barnhart v. Ahlers, 79 S.D. 186, 110 N.W. 2d 125. Accepting the prior decisions of this court that while the Municipal court must take judicial notice of Its city ordinances, an appellate court on review may not do so, I submit the record shows the ordinances sufficiently to indicate that though they do not affirmatively authorize a left turn into an alley, they neither prohibit or otherwise regulate them.
Defendant was a policeman of the city. On cross-examination by plaintiff’s attorney, he was asked if he was familiar with the “City Ordinances”. He said he was. He was then asked: “Q. Are you familiar with the City Ordinance on making left turns into alleys? A. * * * there is no City Ordinance that says you can’t. * * Q. Do you know of any City Ordinance that authorizes a left *441turn into an alley? A. No, I don’t. Q. In fact there isn’t any such ordinance is there? A. Not that I know of.* * *”
Part of this evidence was objected to by the defendant because “these questions * * * should be covered in the instructions to the Jury later on as to what the law is * * *.” The objection was overruled by the trial judge with the statement “he is supposed to be familiar with the City Ordinances. It is all right to ask him if he knows what it is.” Admittedly the evidence was objectionable as not the best evidence and as invading the province of the court, yet the plaintiff and the court took this method of placing tihe ordinances in the record. The official sovereign documents provided for by SDC 1960 Supp. 36.0701 are the best evidence but if in a trial counsel offers and the court receives in evidence a typed sheet containing what was testified or agreed to as the ordinance, it would be in the record as such. So here where counsel offers and the trial court permits proof of the ordinance by this informal, unorthodox method, instead of reaching for the published ordinance book, it becomes part of the record. Plaintiff brought it in and cannot complain of it. Blackpipe State Bank v. Grass, 78 S.D. 551, 105 N.W.2d 442.
In this state of the record the burden then devolved on plaintiff to disprove this testimony by introducing an ordinance prohibiting such turn, if one existed, and then moving to strike the oral testimony. He did neither. We are not treating testimony of a state statute or rule of law which would not be of any force (State Highway Commission v. Fortune, 77 S.D. 302, 91 N.W.2d 675) but with an ordinance that this court has held must be proved and placed in the trial court record in order to be Considered on appeal. Appellant’s brief states “there is no ordinance in the City of Sioux Falls prohibiting left hand turns into alleys”. This is unchallenged as respondent filed no brief and made no appearance at oral argument. While the introduction of the pertinent ordinances was the proper method, permitting plaintiff to prove them, as outlined, in the trial court and use the claimed lack of them in this court as a shield for error results in an *442injustice. The instruction was erroneous and the order denying a new trial should be reversed.