Court Opinion

ID: 9470480
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:07:25.078872+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:55.678305
License: Public Domain

HIGGINBOTHAM, Circuit Judge,
specially concurring:
I concur, but add this note, not for qualification but for caveat. Our efforts to justify appellate review by attempting to separate intertwined subsidiary facts and ultimate legal conclusions inevitably cast surrealistic shadows. The exercise can, and occasionally does, do little more than serve as a covering cape for the exercise of the trial court function by an appellate court. That transfer can frustrate assignments of institutional responsibility and deny efficacy to the Seventh Amendment.
I do not here need the comfort of the exercise. Genuinely undisputed facts at trial permit no conclusion but that Manuel Tonche was Ercell Givens’ employee, or that Givens’ conduct was wilful under Coleman v. Jiffy June Farms, Inc., 458 F.2d 1139 (5th Cir.1971), cert. denied, 409 U.S. 948, 93 S.Ct. 292, 34 L.Ed.2d 219 (1972).