Section 1.15 Law and Facts

• Library: App Ct Prac 2015 Supp

2. (§1.15) Law and Facts

Law school graduates love the distinction between law and facts. We use the phrase, “that goes to the facts of the case.” Our jury instructions speak of the judge owning the law and the jury having the facts. Yet, in reality, the distinction is not so clear at all. See Stephen A. Weiner, The Civil Jury Trial and the Law-Fact Distinction, 54 Cal. L. Rev. 1867 (1966); Stephen A. Weiner, The Civil Nonjury Trial and the Law-Fact Distinction, 55 Cal. L. Rev. 1020 (1967). A judge’s “legal” rulings actually are decisions about whether something is a relevant fact, a reliable fact, or a material fact. A jury’s verdicts are actually judgments about legal notions, such as guilt, liability, or sanity, for instance. Most statements written under the heading of conclusions of law are simply declarative statements of factual observations. When a judge instructs the jury about the law, “abstract notions of law” are always avoided. John R. Branson, Comment, An Analysis of the Application of the Clearly Erroneous Standard of Rule 52(a) to Findings of Fact in Federal Nonjury Cases, 53 Miss. L.J. 473 (1983). So-called “ultimate facts” are actually mixed statements of law and fact.

Once upon a time, the overwhelming majority of reversals on appeal in Missouri were attributable to a rejection of the wording of the jury instructions. Because there is a notion that jury instructions are the judge’s announcement of the law, it...