Court Opinion

ID: 9696401
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 18:46:43.669624+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:21.979781
License: Public Domain

PEDERSON, Justice,
concurring in the result only.
The only way that I can reach the result which was reached by Chief Justice Erick-stad is to apply Rule 52(a), NDRCivP.
The essential findings of fact on the issues of negligence, proximate cause and comparative negligence (§ 9-10-07, NDCC), upon which the conclusions of law, order for judgment, and judgment rest, are found in findings numbered 16 and 17 as follows:
“16. That NTL through its employee was negligent in failing to properly observe his unloading operation, to locate and observe the measuring port on the tank being loaded, to measure and determine the capacity of the receiving tank to ascertain that it could hold the amount of gasoline he was delivering, for failing to exercise care commensurate with the warning given relative to possible overflow and in otherwise failing to take proper and reasonable care to avoid the spillage and overflow, all of which proximately contributed to the fire and ensuing damage to the extent of 75%.
“17. That M & H was negligent in using a cap on its measuring port which was either defective or not properly latched which proximately contributed to the fire and ensuing damage to the extent of 25%.”
Although these are “conclusory” findings, they are adequate and necessary and are supported by facts that were stipulated to. Accordingly, they are not clearly erroneous. Insofar as conclusory findings are based on “inferences drawn from documents or undisputed facts, . .. Rule 52(a) ... is applicable.” United States v. United States Gypsum Co., 333 U.S. 364, 394, 68 S.Ct. 525, 541, 92 L.Ed. 746.
Since § 28-27-32, NDCC, was repealed in 1971 and no appellate rule has been enacted reinstating trial de novo as a standard of review, I cannot agree with the use of the following words in the majority opinion:
“The stipulated facts do not contain any basis upon which we may attribute liability . . .. ” [Emphasis added.]
“. . . we do not believe that he exercised the care that a reasonable man would have exercised . . .. ” [Emphasis added.] “We do not find that the driver’s negligence was an intervening cause .... ” [Emphasis added.]
“. . . we do not believe that M & H’s negligence was an intervening cause . . .. ” [Emphasis added.]
“We agree with the apportionment of negligence .. . . ” [Emphasis added.]
These are all words we might well use in a trial de novo. But if I were substituting my judgment for that of the trial court in this case, I would not have attributed the negligence on a 75%-25% basis.