Opinion ID: 239552
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Sufficiency of the Evidence to Support the Findings of the District Court.

Text: 12 Appellant challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to support the District Court's findings of fact. Both parties in their briefs seek to bring before this Court facts outside the record made below, but such an attempt to enlarge the record must be rejected. This Court cannot conclude that the District Court abused its discretion when the explanation for long delay and inaction was not before it. On the other hand, the review of the evidence has been somewhat limited by the District Court which granted appellant the right to appeal in forma pauperis but refused to authorize the cost of preparing the transcript of the hearings on the motions on the ground that 'the original record is adequate to present the question raised.' 13 Appellant contends that the long delay has not been his fault since appellee has refused to cooperate in the taking of depositions. He further states that the warning in the order of April 19, 1955 that further continuances would not be granted should be read in connection with his affidavit filed with his request for that continuance. At that time appellant based his belief that he could be in Guam in three to four months on the assumption that he would be continuously employed. He contends that he was not continuously employed and failed to make enough money to pay either the costs of depositions or passage to Guam for the trial. However, neither of these explanations is in the record. 14 The District Court's finding that appellant in bad faith had asserted that he was in the hospital when in fact he was not again is challenged by material outside the record. The District Court's finding was based on a letter from the master of appellant's MSTS ship stating that appellant had worked from May 16, 1955 to August 10, 1955, and was on sick leave only six hours on August 9th. The cablegram claiming appellant was in the hospital was dated August 9, 1955. Appellant, in his brief, claims he went to the hospital on August 9th and was there when his attorney cabled Guam, and he returned to his ship which carried a Navy doctor on August 10th over the objections of his doctor because of his need for money: He contends that he did not have a chance to rebut the inference to be drawn from the letter since the hearing was set for 9:30 A.M. on August 15, 1955 and the letter was not received until after 1:05 P.M. However, there is no more in the record than the cablegram implying that appellant was hospitalized and the letter stating that this was not the case. There is nothing to show that the Guam counsel of appellant did not have full opportunity to rebut the implications of the letter from the MSTS master. From the material in the record, it cannot be said that the District Court's conclusion was 'clearly erroneous.' F.R.C.P. 52(a). 15 On the other hand, there is no evidence in the record to support the District Court's finding that appellant 'has been in a financial position to have additional depositions taken' or that 'plaintiff has no bona fide intention to do more than harass the defendant.' Both of these conclusions apparently are based on the letter which indicated that the appellant had worked from May 16, 1955 to August 10, 1955. However, the appellant had worked only 59 days from April 11, 1954, the date of his injury, until May 16, 1955. He had a wife and five children who had been supported by San Francisco Welfare Authorities. He had been forced to borrow to put up a cost bond on appellee's demand since he was a non-resident of Guam. Assuming these findings are 'clearly erroneous', we have the question whether there are other evidence-supported findings to warrant the dismissal. 16 The facts supported by the record are that the case had been pending for fifteen months with little action on the part of the appellant to bring it to trial, and two continuances had been granted. The appellant had claimed he was confined in a hospital and unable to attend a trial when he was not so confined. The defendant had been put to expense in preparing a defense. 17 II. The Lack of a Gross Abuse of Discretion in Dismissing the Case with Prejudice. 18 Appellant argues that on the facts supported by evidence in the record it was a 'gross abuse of discretion' to deny a continuance or a dismissal without prejudice. However, most of the facts indicating that the action should not be so dismissed were not presented to the District Court. Undoubtedly judges must be careful not to penalize litigants who cannot swiftly proceed because of the very injury and its impairment of their finances which constitutes the basis of their claim. Here another dimension is added to the problem since the District Court is in Guam and a poor litigant is in San Francisco. 19 However, defendants should not be kept with lawsuits hanging over their heads for long periods of time as litigation expenses mount. The courts also have an obligation to other litigants to keep their calendars clear as was pointed out in Boling v. United States, 9 Cir., 231 F.2d 926, 927. 20 'One of the causes of congestion of the trial dockets is the failure of courts to exercise the authority vested in them thus to dispose of cases which are shaky or unfounded but which are held on the calendar for nuisance value. Since trial judges are hesitant to dismiss such causes of their own motion, for fear of injustice to some litigant, the device of placing cases in which no action has been taken for a considerable time on a docket for dismissal, absent a showing of adequate explanation for the delay, has been used. But even this palliative for the admitted evil has been of little avail, because of the innate hesitancy mentioned above. Because of this fact, an order of dismissal for failure to prosecute will never be set aside unless there has been an abuse of discretion, and, of course, such a situation is not presumed.'Here, all the record shows is a long delay, two continuances, and no sign that appellant was any nearer to trial in August of 1955 than he was in April of that year or in June of the previous year at the time of the pre-trial order. While the case involves nowhere near the abuses found in the typical situation where F.R.C.P. 41(b) is invoked, 4 it cannot be said that the District Court abused its discretion without resorting to contentions of fact not found in the record. 21 However, appellant is not entirely without the possibility of a remedy. Much of the material he sought to present to the Court outside of the record could be presented to the District Court of Guam to support a motion under F.R.C.P. 60(b) which provides in part: 22 'On motion and upon such terms as are just, the court may relieve a party or his legal representative from a final judgment, order, or proceeding for the following reasons: (1) mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect; (2) newly discovered evidence which by due diligence could not have been discovered in time to move for a new trial under Rule 59(b);   . The motion shall be made within a reasonable time, and for reasons (1), (2)    not more than one year after the judgment, order or proceeding was entered or taken.   ' 23 If all of the material in appellant's brief were before the trial court, it might come to a different conclusion. 24