Court Opinion

ID: 9677734
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 05:58:14.589234+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:58.065487
License: Public Domain

PEDERSON, Justice,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I agree fully that some of the findings of fact are supported by substantial evidence and that some of them are not. Rule 52(a), NDRCivP, requires that all findings of fact be supported by substantive evidence. The judicial system will work best if trial courts do trial court functions and appellate courts do appellate functions. Accordingly, I dissent from that part of Chief Justice Erick-stad’s opinion wherein this court usurps the trial court’s responsibility by making findings of fact.
When I concurred specially in Mansukhani v. Pailing, 318 N.W.2d 748 (N.D.1982), I pointed out that § 14-05-25, NDCC, appears to be an invitation in domestic relations cases to treat this court as a trial court. As a matter of principle alone, I would think that lawyers would not want us to encroach on trial court functions even though, in a particular case, it may appear to someone who has not given it much thought to be a waste of judicial effort to remand so that a trial judge can perform that function.
If the trial court that heard the evidence in this case had made the findings of fact now made by this court, those findings would not be clearly erroneous. I do not say that justice is not being done.