Court Opinion

ID: 9450976
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 17:01:58.162047+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:30.711053
License: Public Domain

JOHN R. BROWN, Circuit Judge,
(concurring):
As we are committed, wisely I think, to the principle that one review of the evidence is enough in a diversity case, Lincoln National Life Ins. Co. v. Roosth, 5 Cir., 1962, 306 F.2d 110, and the scope of further fact findings was a narrow one under our prior mandate, I concur that F.R.Civ.P. 52(a) prevents us from overturning the District Court’s action. I do so not without substantial misgivings. For fraud in law, if not fraud in fact, seems plainly revealed. No one had to know better than the shipper the quality of the grain being loaded and delivered. The facts show spectacularly that out of a barge load of 1,750,000 pounds, over one-half, 900,000 pounds graded 4 and 850,000 pounds graded 1. The so-called expert grader proceeded on the naive assumption that if these substantial quantities of grade 4 (loaded in bow hatches 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5) were mixed with other grain grading 1 loaded elsewhere in the barge, the mass would grade out as grade 2. But it was not mixed. It was not supposed to be mixed in the barge. And on the appellant’s theory, twice sustained by the District Court, it was the presence of the forbidden impurities accounting for the lowered grade which caused the damage by moisture, etc., not only to that portion but, worse, to all remaining grain in the barge. When, in determining whether “deviations from the prescribed inspection standards” by the inspector were “flagrant enough to show bad faith or failure to exercise a honest judgment,” it is tested on an objective basis, not the subjective one of the inspector’s good or evil heart, the proper answer is so plainly indicated that I am apprehensive that the trial Judge reached his now binding conclusion from an incorrect legal standard. But as this is not expressly revealed, F. R.Civ.P. 52(a) compels affirmance.