Opinion ID: 855060
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Clear Error Standard of Review

Text: In an appeal from a bench trial, we review the district court’s findings of fact and applications of law to those findings for clear error. Trs. of Chi. Painters & Decorators Fund v. Royal Int’l Drywall & Decorating, Inc., 493 F.3d 782, 785 (7th Cir. 2007). We will find clear error when we are “left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed.” Anderson v. City of Bessemer City, 470 U.S. 564, 573 (1985). And “[w]e may have such a conviction if ‘the trial judge’s interpretation 8 No. 12-1888 of the facts is implausible, illogical, internally inconsistent or contradicted by documentary or other extrinsic evidence.’ ” EEOC v. Sears Roebuck & Co., 839 F.2d 302, 309 (7th Cir. 1988) (quoting Ratliff v. City of Milwaukee, 795 F.3d 612, 617 (7th Cir. 1986)). Ordinarily, breach and proximate cause are questions of fact reviewed for clear error. Swearingen v. Momentive Specialty Chems., Inc., 662 F.3d 969, 972 (7th Cir. 2011) (applying Illinois law). But when “there is no material issue regarding the matter or only one conclusion is clearly evident,” breach and proximate cause become questions of law reviewed de novo. Williams v. Univ. of Chi. Hosps., 688 N.E.2d 130, 134 (1997); accord Adams v. N. Ill. Gas Co., 809 N.E.2d 1248, 1257 (Ill. 2004) (“the issues of breach and proximate cause are factual matters for a jury to decide, provided there is a genuine issue of material fact regarding those issues”) (internal citation omitted). On appeal, Furry and Nye argue that this court should treat proximate cause as a question of law because there is only one possible cause of the car accident—Williams driving the postal truck into their station wagon. We assume that the appellants intended to argue that we should treat breach of duty as a question of law because the district court entered judgment based on the plaintiffs’ failure to prove breach and stated that it “need not address the issues of proximate cause and damages.” The appellants’ argument is unpersuasive. Because they offered no eyewitness testimony regarding the No. 12-1888 9 cause of the accident, “the facts of the collision[] had to be inferred from the circumstances.” Miller v. Pillsbury Co., 211 N.E.2d 733, 734 (Ill. 1965). And the circumstances here require some consideration of the context of the crash, the condition of the vehicles, the angle and degree of impact, the vehicle’s traveling speed, and the effect of the weather. The appellants present what they consider to be a “commonsense” analysis of the damage to conclude that the only way the right rear quarter panel and right rear bumper of their car and the left front bumper of Williams’s truck would have suffered the type of damage they did would have been if Williams pulled out of his parking space and hit their station wagon. But even if their analysis offers a plausible explanation for the collision, it by no means necessarily excludes all other possible causes, including those suggested by the district court. And for this reason, breach remains a question of fact reviewed for clear error.