Opinion ID: 702493
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: standard of review

Text: 46 In actions that are tried to the court, the judge's findings of fact are to be honored unless clearly erroneous, paying due respect to the judge's right to draw reasonable inferences and to gauge the credibility of witnesses. See Cumpiano, 902 F.2d at 152 (citing Fed.R.Civ.P. 52(a)); Reliance Steel Prods. Co. v. National Fire Ins. Co., 880 F.2d 575, 576 (1st Cir.1989). A corollary of this proposition is that, when there are two permissible views of the evidence, the factfinder's choice between them cannot be clearly erroneous. See Anderson v. City of Bessemer City, 470 U.S. 564, 574, 105 S.Ct. 1504, 1511-12, 84 L.Ed.2d 518 (1985); Cumpiano, 902 F.2d at 152. In fine, when a case has been decided on the facts by a judge sitting jury-waived, an appellate court must refrain from any temptation to retry the factual issues anew. 47 There are, of course, exceptions to the rule. For example, de novo review supplants clear-error review if, and to the extent that, findings of fact are predicated on a mistaken view of the law. See, e.g., United States v. Singer Mfg. Co., 374 U.S. 174, 195 n. 9, 83 S.Ct. 1773, 1784 n. 9, 10 L.Ed.2d 823 (1963); RCI N.E. Servs. Div. v. Boston Edison Co., 822 F.2d 199, 203 (1st Cir.1987). This does not mean, however, that the clearly erroneous standard can be eluded by the simple expedient of creative relabelling. See Cumpiano, 902 F.2d at 154; Reliance Steel, 880 F.2d at 577. For obvious reasons, we will not allow a litigant to subvert the mandate of Rule 52(a) by hosting a masquerade, dressing factual disputes in 'legal' costumery. Reliance Steel, 880 F.2d at 577; accord Dopp v. Pritzker, 38 F.3d 1239, 1245 (1st Cir.1994), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 115 S.Ct. 1959, 131 L.Ed.2d 851 (1995).B. Analysis. 48 Appellants make two main arguments in regard to plaintiff's disability claim. First, in an effort to skirt Rule 52(a), they assert that the district court committed an error of law, mistaking the meaning of the phrase permanently and totally disabled as that phrase is used in the policy. We reject the assertion as comprising nothing more than a clumsy attempt to recast a clear-error challenge as an issue of law in hope of securing a more welcoming standard of review. The policy itself defines the operative term, and the record makes pellucid that the district judge applied the term within the parameters of that definition. 49 Appellants' second contention posits that the district court misperceived the facts, and that plaintiff was not sufficiently disabled to merit an award of benefits. This contention also lacks force. The district court had adequate grounds for deciding that plaintiff was totally and permanently disabled. The evidence showed that plaintiff sustained a devastating brain injury, and that, throughout the year following his accident, a number of physicians found his disability to be continuous. By and large, plaintiff's condition did not improve significantly during that year (or thereafter, for that matter). Without exception, the doctors concluded that he could never return to work as a forklift driver. To cap matters, the record contains ample evidence that the plaintiff's disability was permanent and blanketed the universe of occupations to which plaintiff--a laborer with a high-school education--might have aspired. 50 We need not cite book and verse. The court made detailed findings, crediting the conclusions of four doctors who judged plaintiff to be severely impaired, both mentally and physically. 7 The court also credited an evaluation performed by Sherri Krasner, a speech and language pathologist, and the testimony of a vocational rehabilitation counselor, Arthur Kaufman, who offered an opinion that plaintiff was unable to work without constant supervision. Kaufman stated that he did not know of a job suitable for a person in plaintiff's condition. 8 On this record, the trial court's total disability finding is unimpugnable. 51 Another wave of appellants' evidentiary attack targets the district court's finding that plaintiff's disability is permanent. In this respect, appellants rely mainly on the physicians' recommendations for rehabilitative therapy as indicative of the potential for recovery. The district court, however, found appellants' inference unreasonable in light of the dim prospects for significant recovery, the duration of plaintiff's inability to work, and the policy's failure to require vocational rehabilitation as a precondition to the receipt of benefits. These are fact-dominated issues, and the trial court is in the best position to calibrate the decisional scales. See Cumpiano, 902 F.2d at 152. Having examined the record with care, we have no reason to suspect that a mistake was committed. See, e.g., Duhaime v. Insurance Co., 86 N.H. 307, 308, 167 A. 269 (1933) (explaining that, to be permanently disabled, an insured need not be in a condition of utter hopelessness).