Tipton
Tipton v. Bearl Sprott Co.
Opinion
lead Opinion
Yankwich, J.
(after stating the facts as above).
As the case stands now, the facts are not in dispute, and it only remains for the Court to draw conclusions from the admitted facts. I have not had the benefit of any oral testimony. The advantage of the situation is that, if the Court of Appeals is not satisfied with the conclusions I have drawn, they may draw their own.
It is the accepted rule that where a case is presented on stipulated facts, the mandate of Fed.Rules Civ.Proc. Rule 52, 28 U.S.C.A., that “findings of fact shall not be set aside unless clearly erroneous, and due regard shall be given to the opportunity of the trial court to judge of the credibility of the witnesses” does not come into play. In short, when there are no witnesses, and the Court draws inferences from agreed facts, then the presumption of the correctness of the trial court’s findings does not apply. The Courts have so held repeatedly, and have not hesitated to draw different legal conclusions from admitted facts. See Yankwich, Findings, In the Light of Recent Statutory Amendments, 1948, 8 F.R.D. 271 , 281-282; Wigginton v. Order of United Commercial Travellers, 7 Cir., 1942, 126 F.2d 659 .