Court Opinion

ID: 9467747
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:55:36.895242+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:40:30.305260
License: Public Domain

ALDISERT, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I join in parts I, II, and IV of the majority opinion. I do not join in that portion of part III that relies on Hargenrader v. Cali-fano, 575 F.2d 434 (3d Cir. 1978). As more particularly set forth in my dissent, id. at 438-39, I have problems with that case. My concerns would have been alleviated had this court required only that the ALJ set forth his narrative or historical findings of fact (basic facts). Basic facts underlie determinations of ultimate facts, which are mixtures of fact and law.1 Although judicial review of basic facts is limited to the substantial evidence standard, a review of ultimate facts entails an examination for legal error of the legal components of those findings.
I believe that both the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the district courts would have better understood our directions in Hargenrader and Baerga v. Richardson, 500 F.2d 309, 312-13 (3d Cir. 1974), if the court had distinguished basic facts, for which detailed findings are necessary, from ultimate facts, for which a less detailed explication is sufficient.

. Basic facts are those narrative or historical facts elicited at trial from the testimony and evidence presented by witnesses. An ultimate fact is usually expressed in the language of a standard enunciated by case-law rule or by statute, e. g., an actor’s conduct was negligent; the injury occurred in the course of employment; the rate is reasonable; the company has refused to bargain collectively. “The ultimate finding is a conclusion of law or at least a determination of a mixed question of law and fact”. It is the province of the fact finder — the jury, the judge in non-jury cases, or the administrative agency — to “find” the basic fact, or that part of an ultimate finding that rests on narrative or historical facts.... [Ojnce basic facts have been found, they are seldom dislodged. R. Aldisert, The Judicial Process 694 (1976) (quoting Helvering v. Tex-Penn Oil Co., 300 U.S. 481, 491, 57 S.Ct. 481, 573, 81 L.Ed. 755 (1937)).