Court Opinion

ID: 9860736
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 23:31:11.665548+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:26:34.861114
License: Public Domain

PEDERSON, Justice,
concurring specialty-
I agree with the opinion authored by Justice VandeWalle and only add some comments in order to try to impress more strongly upon trial judges that Rule 52, NDRCivP, will work, with a little understanding and effort, to reduce the burden on the judiciary at both levels. If I had authored the majority opinion, as long as the case was being remanded anyway, I would have asked for a rewrite of every finding of fact which finds that someone testified to something or other. Ordinarily, any statement labeled “finding of fact” which does not provide a final answer to a disputed “issue of fact” is either surplusage or “clearly erroneous.” Obviously, the issues of fact arise out of what happened out on the Gross farm — not what happened in the courtroom.
The requirement that trial courts prepare findings of fact when there is a trial by the court goes back to territorial days. Sections 266-269 of the Code of Civil Procedure, Revised Codes of Dakota (1883), required written decisions with separately stated findings and conclusions, and authorized the judge to call on the parties to assist in the process of preparing them. Those same provisions became §§ 5450— *6885453 of the Revised Codes of the State of North Dakota (1895) and, ultimately, Chapter 28-16, NDCC, which was superseded by the North Dakota Rules of Civil Procedure.
The one thing that Rule 52, NDRCivP, really accomplished was to make the trial court’s findings final, and thus § 28-27-32, NDCC, which authorized trial de novo, was repealed. When an appellate court has to speculate as to what the trial court really found, it encroaches on the trial court function. Only by improving findings of fact will we ever totally eliminate appellate trial de novo.