Court Opinion

ID: 9792754
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:35:58.418288+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:45.050079
License: Public Domain

Springer, J.,
with whom Steffen, J., agrees,
concurring:
I concur with the Majority Opinion reversing the judgment of the trial court. I would, however, add a note relating to the decision-making process employed by Judge Breen, as I believe that the error committed in this case can be directly traced to the district judge’s practice of having the plaintiff and defendant submit written draft judgments favoring their respective sides and then signing one or the other attorney drafts as the court’s judgment.
At oral argument we heard both counsel tell us about Judge Breen’s practice in deciding bench trials. Rather than announcing his decision to the parties and counsel, the judge asks plaintiffs’ counsel to prepare findings, conclusions and judgments that favor plaintiffs’ side and asks defendants to do the same thing in favor of the defendant’s side. Under this practice,1 Judge Breen decides *664cases by choosing one submitted judgment form or the other and thereafter signing the one that he likes best as the final factfind-ing, legal conclusions and judgment of the court.
It is, of course, common for judges to ask a prevailing party, after the court’s decision has been announced, to draft a proposed set of findings and judgment. This is not what happened here. Without knowing who won, counsel for plaintiff and defendant were ordered to submit their respective versions of how a judgment might look should one or the other be fortunate enough to obtain a favorable decision. The judge’s ordering the losing party to prepare a winning judgment is obviously a waste of that attorney’s time and the client’s money. I have never heard of a judge’s doing anything like this. I hope we will see no more of it.
Some may think that judicial decision-making by choosing between two contradictory, prefabricated, attorney-generated documents is acceptable judicial process; but I do not. I find no appellate decisions which discuss this novel practice, but I suspect that this is because no judge has been found, as a matter of *665record, to employ such a practice. Nonetheless, for myself, I would reverse the judgment in this case on this ground alone.

 Judge Breen’s practice of accepting two opposing, written draft decisions prepared by counsel for both plaintiff and defendant and then simply choosing one or the other was explored by the court during oral argument in this fashion:

The Court:

Counsel, I found interesting this case because in the eighteen years that I practiced law I had never had a judge ask both counsel to prepare findings of fact and conclusions of law. Is this a common practice nowadays? Is it common in Washoe County?

Appellant’s Counsel:

.... I have not encountered it before this case. . . .
There was never a decision from the bench. There was never a written decision. There was never any information about why the judge decided the way he did.

The Court:

Why did he?

Counsel:

Well, it’s not in the record, but I will tell you that he did express disapproval of an opinion from this court, but he wouldn’t identify what it was. And something like, “Let’s see what they do with this.” He never gave me — I still don’t know, to this day, what was the deciding factor in Judge Breen’s mind. And that’s very troubling because part of what a judgment’s supposed to do, I think, is to tell the people, to tell people, like my client and myself, “No, this is not the way you do it. You do it this way.” Instead of just blindside from above, all of a sudden this decision comes out without any reasoning, without any recital of why, and, as a result, the parties on appeal and this court’ll *664have to pick through the record trying to figure out what in the “wide world of sports” went on.
.... And that issue [vital points relating to releases and unpaid rent] was never addressed by the trial court. We don’t have a clue as to why, even if this man was constructively evicted, why doesn’t he have to pay for the time he was there?

The Court:

And your opponent didn’t put anything in there [in the judgment prevailing counsel prepared for the judge’s signature] about the rent? Counsel:
No, but he did put some things in about attorney’s fees that we also find objectionable.

The Court:

Counsel, when the judge asked both counsel to prepare findings of fact and conclusions of law and, I assume, judgment, did he indicate how he was going to rule?

Respondent’s Counsel:

He did not. . . .

The Court:

.... Have you seen this practice before, Mr. McElhinney? Counsel:
I have with Judge Breen. Yes sir, I have — where there’s a simultaneous submitting; and I lost at that procedure just like I won at that procedure.

The Court:

Luck of the draw. . . . Your turn this time, huh?
Oral argument, March 16, 1994.