A Bluewater Bravo
February 9, 2016 § 3 Comments
The old rule that, if a trial judge in a ruling adopts one party’s proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law verbatim, her ruling is subject to less deference and greater scrutiny was abolished several years ago in the Bluewater Logistics case. I’ve posted about it here and here.
Now the COA has joined the party, so to speak, in the case of Carlson v. Brabham, decided January 19, 2016, in which the chancellor had adopted one party’s proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law verbatim. Although it was not expressly assigned as error, Judge Griffis took the opportunity to make this pronouncement:
¶12. Further, the supreme court has held that appellate courts must “apply the familiar abuse-of-discretion standard to a trial judge’s factual findings, even where the judge adopts verbatim a party’s proposed findings of fact.” Bluewater Logistics LLC v. Williford, 55 So. 3d 148, 157 (¶32) (Miss. 2011).
Hear, hear!
The Better Chancery Practice Blog 
[…] Another point pressed unsuccessfully by Swartzfager was that it was error for the chancellor to adopt Saul’s findings of fact and conclusions of law verbatim. The court disagreed, pointing out that the judge made his own findings, including adopting some findings of previous chancellors. I might add that even if the chancellor had wholly adopted Saul’s findings, it was not error for him to do so. You can read a post about the subject here. […]
[…] last week I posted about a COA decision in which the court cited the Bluewater Logistics case for the proposition that the trial […]
One could wish it weren’t news when the COA actually followed a MSSC precedent, but appellate practitioners know better.