Court Opinion

ID: 9761125
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 01:32:02.360851+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:20.245948
License: Public Domain

Dooley, J.,
dissenting. My dissent to the Court’s opinion expresses my view that the United States Gypsum Co. test is inconsistent with our standard for appellate review of fact-finding. Ordinarily, I would accept that the issue has been fully aired, even though my view did not prevail, and vote to deny reargument. In this case, I would grant reargument, however, because our explanations for basic inconsistencies in our position are only making the matter worse.
While I think the Court was in error, I accept that it adopted the Gypsum test for evaluating findings of fact. What I cannot accept is that there was no change in our law. No person who put the Gypsum test next to the tests we have adopted to determine whether facts found by the trial court are clearly erroneous could seriously claim that these are the same tests. While Seaway Shopping Center Corp. v. Grand Union Stores, Inc., 132 Vt. 111, 315 A.2d 483 (1974), narrowed the differences between our test and the Gypsum test, it does not say they are the same test. In fact, the issue in Seaway Shopping Center Corp. was whether we would adopt the Gypsum test as appellants urged. We declined to do so, stating, “We are not inclined to give a different meaning to V.R.C.P. 52(a) than has been previously enunciated by this Court in our case law.” Id. at 117, 315 A.2d at 487. We would not have said that if we thought the tests were the same.
Ironically, we recently addressed this precise question in In re Town of Sherburne, 154 Vt. 596, 581 A.2d 274 (1990). We said:
*477Quechee Lakes contrasted the “substantial evidence” standard of review with what is called (following Professor Koch) the “classic formulation” of the “clearly erroneous” test, as set forth in United States v. United States Gypsum Co., 333 U.S. 364, 395 (1948): “A finding is ‘clearly erroneous’ when although there is evidence to support it, the reviewing court on the entire evidence is left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed.” The Gypsum formulation differs, however, from the “clearly erroneous” test under V.R.C.P. 52(a) as typically defined in our decisions.... It also differs from the formulation used since by the United States Supreme Court....
Id. at 606 n.9, 581 A.2d at 279 n.9 (citations omitted). The ink is barely dry on that explanation, and we are today stating the opposite without admitting the conflict. We have now spoken so inconsistently on the standard of review for fact-finding that we should grant reargument and face openly whether we should change that standard as the majority opinion in this case clearly did.