Court Opinion

ID: 9474009
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:45:30.212736+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:51.303708
License: Public Domain

SEYMOUR, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
While I generally concur in the judgment and analysis in this case, I write separately to indicate my disagreement with the majority’s application of Fed.R.Civ.P. 52(a) to our review of the district court’s interpretation of state law. At 254. The Ninth Circuit recently analyzed this question exhaustively in In re McLinn, 739 F.2d 1395 (9th Cir.1984) (en banc), and decided to accord full independent de novo review to state law determinations by district courts. Although I do not urge that we adopt a new standard without en bane consideration, I believe that application of the clearly erroneous standard of Rule 52(a) is inappropriate and reflects the confusion over this issue within our own circuit. Judge Schroeder acknowledged this confusion in her well-reasoned dissent in McLinn and offered some cogent criticisms of the clearly erroneous standard:
“The phrase this Circuit, and to some extent the Tenth Circuit, has used most frequently is that the appellate court will follow the district court’s interpretation of state law unless it is ‘clearly wrong.’ The wording of this formulation is similar to the Rule 52(a) ‘clearly erroneous’ standard of review of factual findings. This similarity is unfortunate, for it connotes that a district court’s decision on a legal issue binds the appellate court just as a district court finding of fact binds the appellate court. In some opinions we have even used the phrase ‘clearly wrong’ and ‘clearly erroneous’ interchangeably. See, e.g., Donaldson v. United States, 653 F.2d 414, 416 (9th Cir.1981); Gaines v. Haughton, 645 F.2d 761, 770 (9th Cir.1981), cert. denied, 454 U.S. 1145, 102 S.Ct. 1006, 71 L.Ed.2d 297 (1982). The result has been a tendency in a few of our decisions to look only to whether plausible support exists for the district court’s legal conclusion, thereby according it presumptive validity. See, *257e.g., Monte Carlo Shirt, Inc. v. Daewoo International (America) Corp., 707 F.2d 1054, 1056-57 (9th Cir.1983); Smith v. Sturm, Ruger & Co., 524 F.2d 776, 778 (9th Cir.1975).
Such excessive reliance on the district court has led to criticism of our formulation.
[T]here is some tendency ... to say that if the trial court has reached a permissible conclusion under state law, the appellate court cannot reverse even if it thinks the state law to be otherwise, thereby treating the question of state law much as if it were a question of fact. The determination of state law, however, is a legal question, and although the considered decision of a district judge experienced in the law of the state naturally commands the respect of an appellate court; a party is entitled to meaningful review of that decision just as he is of any other legal question in the case____
C. Wright, A. Miller & E. Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure § 4507, at 107-09 (1982). See 1A J. Moore, W. Tag-gart, A. Vestal & J. Wicker, Moore’s Federal Practice 110.309[2], at 3128 n. 28 (2d ed. 1983); Wright, supra § 58, at 375-76; Wright & Miller, supra.”
McLinn, 739 F.2d at 1405-06 (Schroeder, J., dissenting).
In addition to the “clearly erroneous” standard, see, e.g., King v. Horizon Corp., 701 F.2d 1313, 1315 (10th Cir.1983), and the “clearly wrong” standard, see, e.g., Mendoza v. K-Mart, Inc., 587 F.2d 1052, 1057 (10th Cir.1978), this circuit has also accorded district court state law determinations “extraordinary force on appeal”, e.g., Campbell v. Joint District 28-J, 704 F.2d 501, 504 (10th Cir.1983), “extraordinary weight”, Adolph Coors Co. v. A & S Wholesalers, Inc., 561 F.2d 807, 816 (10th Cir.1977), “great weight”, e.g., Land v. Roper Corp., 531 F.2d 445, 448 (10th Cir.1976), “substantial weight”, e.g., Glenn Justice Mortgage Co. v. First National Bank, 592 F.2d 567, 571 (10th Cir.1979), “great deference”, e.g., Mustang Fuel Corp. v. Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co., 561 F.2d 202, 204 (10th Cir.1977), “deference”, e.g., Taxpayers for the Animas-La Plata Referendum v. Animas-La Plata Water Conservancy District, 739 F.2d 1472, 1477 (10th Cir.1984), “some deference”, e.g., Colonial Park Country Club v. Joan of Arc, 746 F.2d 1425, 1429 (10th Cir.1984), “a degree of deference”, e.g., Obieli v. Campbell Soup Co., 623 F.2d 668, 670 (10th Cir.1980), and “at least a modicum of deference”, Cedar v. Daniel International Corp., No. 82-2574, slip op. at 5 (10th Cir. April 26, 1983). At best we are inconsistent; at worst, we are confused, and, in my view, this time we are just plain wrong.