Court Opinion

ID: 9659790
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 21:54:46.096763+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:11.562140
License: Public Domain

VOGEL and SAND, Justices
(concurring specially).
We concur, but not in the last two paragraphs of the opinion.
We deplore insistence on useless ritual. A mere recitation of the Fischer guidelines will add nothing to findings of fact. It will only be a useless incantation. If the memorandum opinion or the findings refer to the factors which the judge considered determinative, such as the short duration of the marriage and the amount of property owned by the parties at the time they married, this should be sufficient, without a recital of the things he did not consider important.
Further, a reiterated insistence that counsel should have asked for amended findings under Rule 52(b) in practically every case that comes before us will only clog the trial and appellate processes. It will add one more step, and almost always a useless one, to the post-decision paper work. To require a motion and an adversary hearing, or even the filing of briefs, to modify language used in findings of fact will only make for more expense and delay. The paucity of citations to Rule 52(b), F.R. Civ.P., in standard works on Federal procedure shows that this rule is rarely used. It should be rarely used.
We must recognize that judges often write memorandum decisions, from which the prevailing lawyer is asked to draw findings of fact, conclusions of law, and order for judgment. We are not prepared to require all judges to draft their own findings. Since usually the successful lawyer drafts the findings, we are not too surprised to find that occasionally the findings he draws are incomplete or partisan or less than artistic. If the basis for the court’s decision is evident from the memorandum or otherwise, we should be content.
We, too, hope that the judges will always make clear the bases for their decisions and hope that lawyers will draft perfect findings. But we doubt that ritualistic resort to Rule 52(b) will take us much farther toward perfection. Artificial rules compelling lawyers to do obeisance to useless formalities will not help us or them or the client whose ease must be decided.