Opinion ID: 147852
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Clearly erroneous as a matter of law

Text: Metro's primary argument is that the district court's decision was substantively wrongthat the court incorrectly viewed the evidence as favoring the Plaintiffs and unjustly cited Metro's counsel for engaging in misconduct that prejudiced the trial.
The district court indeed held that the weight of the evidence supported the Plaintiffs, despite the jury finding in favor of Metro on all 46 claims that were presented to it. But Metro's contention that the court erred in so holding does not aid its case for mandamus. This is because the district court's decision on the weight of the evidence is inherently factual, not legal. See, e.g., Molski v. M.J. Cable, Inc., 481 F.3d 724, 729 (9th Cir.2007) (Because determining `the clear weight of the evidence' is a fact-specific endeavor, appeals courts are reluctant to second-guess district courts' conclusions.); Murphy Oil USA, Inc. v. Wood, 438 F.3d 1008, 1020 (10th Cir.2006) (A motion for a new trial on the ground that the verdict is against the weight of the evidence presents a question of fact, not of law.); Ceraso v. Motiva Enterprises, LLC, 326 F.3d 303, 316 (2d Cir.2003) (The weight of the evidence is not a ground for reversal on appeal.). This is not to say that all weight-of-the-evidence challenges are factual. Had the court applied an erroneous legal standard in weighing the evidence, for example, this would be a legal error that would aid Metro's argument for mandamus. And weight-of-the-evidence arguments can of course be raised in a typical appeal from a trial verdict. See, e.g., Rush v. Ill. Cent. R. Co., 399 F.3d 705, 727 (6th Cir.2005) (reviewing an appellant's argument that the verdict was against the weight of the evidence). But Metro makes no suggestion that the district court applied the wrong legal standard in weighing the evidence. It simply disagrees with the district court's evaluation. As a result, Metro's weight-of-the-evidence argument raises a purely factual issue. Moreover, the district court's decision depended on how it understood the evidence, what weight it gave to various pieces of evidence, and how it judged the credibility of various witnesses. See, e.g., Verrett v. Chrysler Corp., No. 98-1916, 1999 WL 801567, at  (6th Cir. Oct.1, 1999) (noting that how a piece of evidence impacts the credibility of witnesses is a factual issue). We have no reason to doubt that the court carefully observed and considered all the evidence, not the least because it was acting as the finder of fact with regard to the disparate-impact claims. In any event, the court's conclusion on this issue appears to be derived from its factual interpretations of the evidence and thus in our judgment is not clearly erroneous as a matter of law. See John B., 531 F.3d at 457 (emphasis added).
The allegedly prejudicial behavior of Metro's counsel, on the other hand, is a different matter, because whether an attorney's conduct prejudices a proceeding is not a purely factual issue. Cf. Wilson v. Parker, 515 F.3d 682, 707 (6th Cir.2008) (noting that an ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim presents a mixed question of fact and law). Metro complains that the district court repeatedly accused its counsel of engaging in specific prejudicial acts that he simply did not do, wrongly characterized Metro's routine objections as efforts to confuse the jury, declared Metro's attempts to introduce relevant evidence to be misconduct, and erroneously criticized its counsel for mistating the law. Our careful review of the record leaves us in considerable doubt as to the appropriateness of the district court's determination that Metro's counsel committed misconduct and prejudiced the proceedings. Given that a party seeking a new trial [based on attorney misconduct] must make a concrete showing that the misconduct of counsel consistently permeated the entire trial from beginning to end, Sutkiewicz v. Monroe County Sheriff, 110 F.3d 352, 361 (6th Cir.1997), the lack of such a concrete showing here indicates that the district court may have erred in relying on the allegedly prejudicial conduct of Metro's counsel as a basis to grant a new trial. But even if we were to so conclude, the issuance of a writ of mandamus on that basis would be inappropriate in light of the remaining John B. factors discussed below.