Opinion ID: 1187817
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Invalidity of the Trial Court's Findings

Text: The second singular issue in this case for the court to justify its decision is the attack on the finding of the trial court denying duress and undue persuasion. [2] Standard rules in support of the trial court and their special findings of fact are so well established as to afford little additional knowledge to the bench and bar by further recitation. Sowerwine v. Nielson, Wyo., 671 P.2d 295 (1983); Whitefoot v. Hanover Ins. Co., Wyo., 561 P.2d 717 (1977); United States v. National Association of Real Estate Boards, 339 U.S. 485, 70 S.Ct. 711, 94 L.Ed. 1007 (1950). It could be considered that the United States Supreme Court, in rather succinct and specific fashion, addressed the appellate rules which should apply, in Icicle Seafoods, Inc. v. Worthington, ___ U.S. ___, 106 S.Ct. 1527, 89 L.Ed.2d 739 (1986). Justice Rehnquist reordered and defined in proper perspective, in reversing the circuit court's earlier reversal of the district court determination of fact, in the following sequence: 1. A factual question as a specific finding could be set aside only if clearly erroneous. [3] 2. If the appellate court believes that the trial court failed to make findings of fact essential to the proper resolution of the legal question, it should have remanded to the district court to make those findings. 3. If it was of the view that the findings were clearly erroneous, within the meaning of Rule 52(a), it could have set them aside on that basis. 4. If the findings were unassailable, but the proper rule of law was misapplied to the findings, it could have reversed the district court judgment. 5. But it should not simply have made factual findings on its own. See Icicle Seafoods, Inc. v. Worthington, supra. At this juncture, in this case, the finite fallacy of legal resolution directly addressed by Justice Rehnquist is evidenced in this second appeal consideration where neither in trial consideration nor first appeal was that adverse factual complicity determined. Suffice it to be said that any present findings of this court of duress or undue persuasion are simply unjustified by this court's appellate practice, and implicate only by justification as a result-oriented, factually redetermined appellate disposition which the majority of this court has determined by opinion conclusion. Consequently, any detailed discussion at this time of the record reflecting the course of events in the consent, withdrawal and adoption process by dissent of this writer by further re-evaluation, can now only afford litigant frustration.