Court Opinion

ID: 9514807
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 22:51:46.675494+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:06:20.978566
License: Public Domain

AMUNDSON, Justice
(dissenting).
[¶ 13.] In the present case, we are faced with the interpretation of SDCL 12-22-8, which provides that an election contest “shall be deemed commenced upon the filing with the clerk of court of a summons and complaint, which complaint shall be duly verified, and set forth a concise statement of the facts on which the *924contest is based.” (emphasis added). We have often stated,
“The purpose of rules regarding the construction of statutes is to discover the true intention of the law, and said intention is to be ascertained by the court primarily from the language expressed in the statute. In applying legislative enactments, we must accept them as written. The legislative intent is determined from what the legislature said, rather than from what we or others think it should have said.
While it is fundamental that we must strive to ascertain the real intention of the lawmakers, it is equally fundamental that we must confíne ourselves to the intention as expressed in the language used. To violate the rule against supplying omitted language would be to add voluntarily unlimited hazard to the already inexact and uncertain business of searching for legislative intent.
One of the primary rules of statutory ... construction is to give words and phrases their plain meaning and effect. This court assumes that statutes mean what they say and that legislators have said what they meant. When the language of a statute is clear, certain and unambiguous, there is no occasion for construction, and the court’s only function is to declare the meaning of the statute as clearly expressed in the statute.”
South Dakota Subsequent Injury Fund v. Casualty Reciprocal Exch., 1999 SD 2, ¶ 17, 589 N.W.2d 206, 209 (quoting Delano v. Petteys, 520 N.W.2d 606, 608 (S.D.1994) (quoting In re Famous Brands, Inc., 347 N.W.2d 882, 884-85 (S.D.1984))).
[¶ 14.] A review of SDCL 12-22-8 clearly and unambiguously reveals the legislature required that a “verified complaint” be filed with the clerk of courts in order to commence an election contest. In the present case, complainants filed an initial ’ complaint, but it was not “verified.” Later, complainants filed affidavits claiming that an “oral oath” was given and therefore, the complaint was verified. While the majority agrees that no written verification is required and the oral oath was sufficient to verify the complaint, I would disagree.
[¶ 15.] The case of Cline v. Cline, 101 Fla. 488, 134 So. 546 (1931), which is cited by the majority, is clearly distinguishable from the present case. In Cline, an affidavit was attached to the petition which was signed by a notary public and stated that Catalina de Cline “personally appeared before me,” but the signature is not that of Catalina de Cline. The majority of this Court quotes the Florida court’s holding that “[w]e have been cited no law requiring an oath to the petition to be in writing and signed by the person making it. As a rule an oral oath is sufficient unless a written oath is prescribed.” Id. at 549. The present case is clearly distinguishable because we have no affidavit attached to the complaint as in Cline. Instead, we are faced with affidavits stating that an oral verification oath was given at the time of signing, but these affidavits were filed to resist the motion to dismiss.3
[¶ 16.] In Home Federal Savings & Loan Ass’n of Sioux Falls v. First Bank of South Dakota, 405 N.W.2d 655 (S.D.1987), the court was faced with a summary judgment motion and a party’s sole response to the motion being an “affidavit which simply stated that the facts set forth in her pleadings were correct.” Id. at 657. The majority noted that “a court may consider allegations contained in a verified complaint to determine if the requirements of SDCL 15-6-56(e) were met.” Id. at 658. *925The court found that the pleadings were not verified, but that a “swearing to the truth of the contents of her pleadings will for present purposes be considered as having the same affect as though her pleadings were verified.” Id. Justice Henderson poignantly noted,
the pleadings were unverified. By affidavit of February 26, 1986, appellant supposedly “swears to the truth” of the November 15, 1985 pleadings. This is some type of a “retroactive swearing.” The swearing itself is faulty because the affidavit says that the facts in the pleadings “are true and correct to the best of her knowledge, information and believe [sic].” This retroactive bootstrapping by the use of a 1986 so-called affidavit, to raise the pleadings back in 1985 to a level of being verified, is totally untenable as a matter of law.
Id. at 659 (Henderson, J., concurring in result).
[¶ 17.] To allow these later-filed affidavits in the present case to constitute a valid verification allows parties to “retroactively bootstrap” around the statutory requirement that the election contest shall be commenced upon the filing of a verified complaint and summons. Further, the allowance of these affidavits to constitute valid verification also opens the door to parties fabricating whether an oath was in fact given. The statute clearly requires that the verification accompany the complaint when filing an election contest action. No verified complaint was ever filed; therefore, the election contest was never properly commenced.4 I would affirm.

. A review of the transcript at the motion hearing contains the following argument by counsel for the complainants:
I am not happy with what happened here. And I assure this Court that I accept responsibility and it absolutely won't happen again.... We didn’t type the magic words down on the paper, that was unfortunate, but that was a clerical error.
This clearly shows that in arguing substantial compliance, counsel acknowledged that the complaint must be verified when filed. The trial court did not buy into counsel’s substantial compliance argument.

. In People v. Phillipe, 142 Misc.2d 574, 538 N.Y.S.2d 400, 404-05 (N.Y.Crim.Ct. 1989), the court discussed the importance of verification and stated:
Verification of a document is the written equivalent of a testimonial oath.... It alerts the witness that his statement has jural effect, on himself as well as on others. While it is no guarantee of truthfulness, neither is it meaningless ritual. The oath not only places the witness on notice that he must speak the truth, it serves as the foundation for a subsequent perjury prosecution, [citations omitted.] Indeed, it is the ritualistic quality of the oath, affirmation or attestation procedure which reminds the witness of his obligation, [citation omitted.]
[T]he verification procedure must be performed in a manner that both complies with the formal requirements of statute and impresses upon the deponent the realization that he is performing a jural act....
Consequently, if the deponents at bar signed the depositions without a contemporaneous understanding of the self-attestation warning printed above the signature-line, the signature cannot be deemed effective verification. These considerations strike at the very purpose of verification and accordingly must be deemed substantive requirements.
Clearly, the verification requirement of our statute has not been met in the present case.