Opinion ID: 381814
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Flour Beetle Confusion

Text: 37 One issue permeates this case. The issue is central to evaluating the performance by ADM and Bolivia of their flour contract obligations; determination of the party responsible for loss after the flour left ADM's custody and before it reached the custody of Bolivia or the Court; and sorting out the rights and duties of ADM, Bolivia, and Stevenson regarding care and transportation of the flour. 38 The issue is: what was the source of the flour infestation? This issue was the focus of proceedings in the District Court. After hearing the sometimes conflicting testimony of 49 witnesses during five weeks of trial, considering hundreds of exhibits, and evaluating the extensive arguments by counsel, the District Judge concluded that infestation began either on the rail cars or at three independent mills supplying substantial amounts of the flour. 15 Neither of the warehouses nor the ships were the source of any significant infestation. 16 ADM now asks us to hold the District Judge's infestation findings clearly erroneous. 39 We have repeatedly sought, but without too much success, to teach counsel 40 that in this kind of controversy (the) functions of the courts in the judicial hierarchy are distinct and different and we would undermine the vitality of the system by a too-quick meddling in the principal business of a trial court.    A trial of a hotly contested, sharply disputed case is the task of a trial court and reviewing courts even in admiralty    should be slow to overturn fact decisions made by the judge before whom the facts are annealed through the hammering, heating process of vigorous, running advocacy. 41 Grigsby v. Coastal Marine Service of Texas, Inc., 412 F.2d 1011, 1020, 1969 A.M.C. 1513, 1523-24 (5th Cir.1969) (quoting Ohio Barge Line v. Oil Transport Co., 280 F.2d 448, 449, 1961 A.M.C. 375, 376 (5th Cir.1960)). Factual findings grounded on a correct legal standard come here well armed with the 'buckler and shield of F.R.Civ.P. 52(a).'  Horton v. United States Steel Corp., 286 F.2d 710, 713 (5th Cir.1961). We do not retry the case. Smith v. United States, 287 F.2d 299, 301 (5th Cir.1961). It is well settled that in order for a reviewing court to set aside findings of fact by a trial court sitting without a jury, it must be clearly demonstrated that such findings are without adequate evidentiary support in the record, or were induced by an erroneous view of the law, and the burden of showing that the findings are clearly erroneous is on the one attacking them. Chaney v. City of Galveston, 368 F.2d 774, 776 (5th Cir.1966) (footnote omitted). 42 ADM's attempt to demonstrate the District Judge clearly erroneous begins with evidence that the flour mills operated sanitation programs and shifting machinery which precluded flour beetle infestation. With slight equivocation, ADM's expert entomologist testified that mill conditions could not have been the source of infestation: the rebolt sifters remove even beetle eggs and the sanitation programs were adequate. Testimony was also introduced to show that no insects were observed on the outside of the bags during the rail car unloading. ADM also alludes to evidence that the rail cars were prepared in a sanitary fashion and to the discovery at Arica, Chile, of limited numbers of insects other than flour beetles in or around the Arizona and Southwall flour. In sum, ADM theorizes that the flour became infested by means of a massive external attack, either at the warehouses or aboard ship. 43 There is, however, abundant, substantial evidence, much of it expressly accepted by the District Judge in various subsidiary findings of fact, which counters that proffered by ADM. For example, flour from three of the independent mills was found to be infested to a significantly greater extent than flour from the other four mills. 449 F.Supp. at 116. ADM does not explain how a massive external attack could selectively infest the flour. The three independent mills also have less stringent sanitation programs and fewer inspections than ADM operated mills. Flour in the three independent mills was sometimes stored for substantial periods following sifting but before bagging, making infestation more possible. The sieve material on rebolt sifters sometimes tore, possibly allowing flour beetles into the bags of flour. Id. at 114-17. In addition, the fact that no insects were observed on the bags during the unloading of the rail cars does not preclude infestation of an unobservable nature inside of the bags of flour. 44 Perhaps the most telling evidence concerns the extent and character of the infestation first discovered in samples taken in Mobile by Superintendence from September 4 to September 20, 1974. Car lots totalling between 40,000 and 50,000 bags of flour were found infested at that time. Id. at 118. Flour beetles at various stages of development were found inside the bags. At the time of sampling, the flour had been in the warehouses for, on the average, less than a month. The biological facts concerning flour beetles, as found by the District Judge and not disputed by the parties, are that flour beetles under the relevant conditions mature from egg to larvae to pupa to adult in six weeks. Id. at 118. In addition, while egg, larvae, and pupa have little or no mobility, the adult flour beetle is very mobile and can easily reach all areas of an enclosed space. Comparing these biological facts with (i) the limited period that the sampled flour had been in the Mobile warehouses and (ii) the discovery of widespread infestation inside the bags of flour and at various stages of development, it is easily inferable that the infestation began and even had multiplied in the flour before it reached the state docks warehouses. Indeed, at trial an expert entomologist so conceded. See id. 45 Finally, there was substantial evidence that neither warehouses nor ships were the source of infestation. Flour from previous shipments had been recently stored in the warehouses without problem and there was evidence that ships and warehouses were relatively clean. 449 F.Supp. at 93-94. 46 As this summary of the record demonstrates, substantial evidence abounds in support of the District Judge's finding of infestation prior to arrival in Mobile. We hold that the Judge's finding was not clearly erroneous. In so doing we also point out our view, and that of the District Judge, of the nature of flour beetle infestation of flour. The presence of only partial infestation is roughly the equivalent of being only a little bit pregnant. Adult flour beetles are quite capable of moving between bags of flour and penetrating previously clean bags. The red rust flour beetle is especially mobile since it is a strong flyer. 449 F.Supp. at 118 n.51. The adult female beetle will lay better than an egg a day, id., causing rapid growth in the infestation. These characteristics in sum render even clean flour susceptible to total infestation if it is stored in unprotected proximity to infested flour. Consequently we view partial infestation of flour with the understanding that all nearby and vulnerable flour is in a sense also infested.