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300 F.2d 830

Docket Nos. 13734 and 13735.

Kruger v. Purcell

Third Circuit Court of Appeals

Argued Feb. 1, 1962.

Decided March 26, 1962.

Third Circuit Court of Appeals · decided 1962-03-26

4 counsel of record

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“find the facts on every material issue, including relevant subsidiary issues, and . . . 'state separately' its conclusions thereon with clarity.”

quoted by 2 later decisions, including Government of the Virgin Islands v. Pant, Hodge v. McGowan

Relies on Commissioner of Internal Revenue v. Duberstein D Stanton · Kelley v. Everglades Drainage District · Irish v. United States

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Opinion by William Francis Smith · Decided 1962-03-26

How this case has been cited

Cited by 32 later decisions — most recently June 1997 · most notably Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond (1983), Herbert J. Roberts v. Norman M. Ross, Jr (1965)

20 federal appellate · 6 district · 2 state decisions

2301962197019801990decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

¶1*831George H. T. Dudley, Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, V. I., for appellant in Nos. 13734 and 13735.

¶2James A. Bough, Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, V. I., for appellees in No. 13734.

¶3Everett B. Birch, Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, Y. I., for plaintiff-appellee in No. 13735.

¶4Croxton Williams, Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, V. I., for defendant-appellee in No. 13735.

¶5Before WOODBURY* ALDRICH* and SMITH, Circuit Judges.

¶7WILLIAM F. SMITH, Circuit Judge.

¶8These appears are from judgments entered in actions to enforce specific performance of contracts for the sale of real property. The actions were consolidated for the purposes of trial. The judgments are challenged as erroneous on several grounds. We are met at the outset by an insurmountable obstacle to an intelligent review, namely, the inadequacy of the findings of fact and conclusions of law. The present state of the record is such that a decision by this Court could be based only on conjecture and this, of course, is not permissible.

¶9The procedure in these actions is governed by Rule 52(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, 28 U.S.C.A., which provides: “In all actions tried upon the facts without a jury , the court shall find the facts specially and state separately its conclusions of law thereon ”. (Emphasis by this Court).

¶10A fair compliance with the rule requires the trial court to find the facts on every material issue, including relevant subsidiary issues, and to “state separately” its conclusions thereon with clarity. Commissioner of Internal Revenue v. Duberstein, 363 U.S. 278, 292, 80 S.Ct. 1190, 4 L.Ed.2d 1218 (1959); Kelley v. Everglades Drainage District, 319 U.S. 415, 421 and 422, 63 S.Ct. 1141, 87 L.Ed. 1485 (1942); Johnson v. United States, 256 F.2d 849 (5th Cir., 1958) ; Irish v. United States, 225 F.2d 3, 8 (9th Cir., 1955); Kweskin v. Finkelstein, 223 F.2d 677, 678 (7th Cir., 1955); Bank of Madison v. Graber, 158 F.2d 137, 141 (7th Cir., 1946). The findings of fact and conclusions of law must be sufficient to indicate the bases of the trial court’s decision. Ibid. This requirement is not met in the instant cases.

¶11A further obstacle to an intelligent consideration of the questions raised is the insufficiency of the record. We have before us only the documentary evidence, which consists of an abstract of title, a surveyor’s plat, deeds, agreements, and correspondence. A transcript *832of the testimony is not available.1 This deficiency in the record is such as to preclude any determination as to whether or not the findings of fact, as sparse as they are, are clearly erroneous.

¶12A remand of these actions to the District Court for the sole purpose of permitting it to state adequately its findings of fact and conclusions of law, would .serve no useful purpose. Therefore, the judgments will be reversed and the actions are remanded with directions that a new trial be had.

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