Opinion ID: 404985
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: sufficiency of the findings

Text: 20 Relying upon the first sentence of Fed.R.Civ.P. 52(a), which requires the district court after a bench trial to find the facts specially and state separately its conclusions of law thereon, TDC contends that the district court failed to make findings of fact sufficiently specific for appellate review. 45 21 The district judge should set forth preliminary and basic facts rather than (s)tatements conclusory in nature. 46 Ultimate findings must be specifically supported. 47 The opinion in this case, as we have already noted, occupies 118 printed pages. More than half of it is devoted to findings of fact. Some of the factual recitals are specific. In deciding other factual issues, the district judge drew inferences concerning general conditions from specific instances. His findings are not apodictic conclusions of the kind we have found insufficient as a basis for review. 48 They are sufficient to give us a clear understanding of the analytical process by which ultimate findings were reached and to assure us that the trial court took care in ascertaining the facts. 49 However convenient it might be for counsel and the appellate court to have specific citations to the record, the absence of which TDC criticizes, such citations are not required. 22 Although the findings are sufficient, they were, as our comments suggest, not all made with the same specificity; indeed, the very nature of some of the issues rendered particularity impossible. The district judge could and did find whether or not a record was made of disciplinary proceedings. He could and did find whether or not on particular occasions one inmate assaulted another. From these data he could and did deduce whether or not it had been shown that inmate assaults were so frequent as to create an atmosphere of violence. That kind of finding, reached by inference from specific data, is both proper and requisite. 23 Whether the data observed are sufficient to warrant a general conclusion must be determined by logic and judgment. The human events of the past cannot be sampled so perfectly as to permit a statistically valid analysis. This kind of conclusion is not a mixed question of fact and law or one of legal inferences from the facts. 50 It is instead one of the sufficiency of an evidentiary basis for a factual conclusion. Although that type of conclusion does not rest on the credibility of witnesses or the advantage of firsthand observation, it is equally a question of fact, to be accepted by us unless clearly erroneous. 24 With regard to both kinds of factual conclusions, we find the district judge's opinion sufficient to give us a clear understanding of the views he took of the evidence, the analytical process by which he reached his conclusions, and the basis by which he applied legal principles to these facts. No more is required.