clearly erroneous rule

In May 1970, Consumers Union published a seven-page article in Consumer Reports. The article evaluated medium-priced loudspeakers and included a boxed section on the Bose 901 system manufactured by Bose Corporation. The article described the system as unique and unconventional. It stated that individual instruments heard through the Bose system seemed to grow to gigantic proportions and tended to wander about the room. A violin appeared ten feet wide and a piano stretched from wall to wall. Bose Corporation took exception to the statements. After Consumers Union refused to publish a retraction, Bose filed a product disparagement action in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts. After protracted pretrial discovery, the district court denied summary judgment and conducted a nineteen-day bench trial on liability. At trial, engineer Arnold Seligson, who supervised the listening tests and prepared the internal report on which the article was based, testified for nearly six days. His initial report used the phrase “wander around the room.” During cross-examination he drew a sketch showing back-and-forth movement along the wall between the speakers. He explained that the word “about” meant what he had drawn. The district court found that the perceived movement was along the wall rather than about the room. It found the published statement false and disparaging. It found Seligson’s testimony claiming the words meant lateral movement not credible. It concluded that the statement had been published with actual malice. The Court of Appeals for the First Circuit reversed. It accepted the disparaging character of the statement but held that it would conduct a de novo review of the actual-malice determination rather than apply the clearly-erroneous standard. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to consider whether the Court of Appeals had erred in refusing to apply Rule 52(a).

Lloyd Corp., Ltd. owns and operates Lloyd Center, a large retail shopping center in Portland, Oregon, spanning about 50 acres with more than 60 commercial tenants, interior malls, parking facilities, and other amenities. The Center maintains a strictly enforced policy prohibiting the distribution of handbills within its building complex and malls, with no exceptions made for such activity. On November 14, 1968, five individuals including Donald Tanner, Betsy Wheeler, and Susan Roberts entered the Center's malls and began distributing handbills inviting the public to a meeting protesting the draft and the Vietnam war. The distribution was quiet, orderly, and produced no litter, though one customer complained. Security guards employed by Lloyd Center, who possess full police authority, informed the distributors that they were trespassing and would be arrested if they did not cease handbilling inside the Center, suggesting instead that they use the adjacent public streets and sidewalks. The five individuals left the premises to avoid arrest and continued their handbilling outside the Center. They subsequently filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of Oregon seeking declaratory and injunctive relief against Lloyd Corp. on the ground that the prohibition violated their constitutional rights. The District Court found that Lloyd Center was the functional equivalent of a public business district and held that the prohibition on handbilling violated the distributors' rights, issuing a permanent injunction. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed this determination in a per curiam opinion. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to review the case.

In September 1976, respondent David Washington committed a series of crimes over a ten-day period in the Miami area that included three brutal stabbing murders along with torture, kidnapping, severe assaults, attempted murders, attempted extortion, and theft. After his two accomplices were arrested, Washington surrendered to police and gave a lengthy statement confessing to the third criminal episode. The State of Florida indicted him for kidnapping and murder and appointed an experienced criminal lawyer to represent him. Washington waived his right to a jury trial against counsel's advice and pleaded guilty to all charges, including the three capital murder counts. In the plea colloquy he stated that he had committed a string of burglaries but had no significant prior criminal record and that he had been under extreme stress caused by his inability to support his family. Counsel spoke with Washington about his background, contacted his wife and mother by telephone, but did not seek out character witnesses or request a psychiatric examination. At the sentencing hearing before the trial judge, counsel's strategy relied primarily on the plea colloquy to convey remorse and emotional stress and argued that these factors justified sparing Washington the death penalty. Counsel successfully moved to exclude Washington's rap sheet and decided not to request a presentence report because it would have included his criminal history. The trial judge found multiple aggravating circumstances for each murder and no mitigating circumstances, sentencing Washington to death on each of the three murder counts. The Florida Supreme Court affirmed the convictions and sentences on direct appeal. Washington sought collateral relief in state court, claiming ineffective assistance of counsel on six grounds including failure to request a psychiatric report, investigate and present character witnesses, and seek a presentence investigation report. He submitted fourteen affidavits from friends, neighbors, and relatives willing to testify and two reports from a psychiatrist and psychologist. The state trial court denied relief without an evidentiary hearing, and the Florida Supreme Court affirmed. Washington then filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida. After an evidentiary hearing at which trial counsel testified, the District Court denied relief, concluding that although counsel made errors in judgment by failing to investigate mitigating evidence further, no prejudice resulted. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed and remanded for application of a new framework it developed for analyzing ineffectiveness claims. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to consider the proper standards for judging claims of ineffective assistance of counsel in a capital sentencing proceeding.

Congress enacted the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to address the long-standing problem of racial discrimination in voting that had persisted in parts of the country for nearly a century. Prior civil rights acts from 1957, 1960, and 1964 had proven largely ineffective because case-by-case litigation was slow, expensive, and inadequate to overcome widespread and persistent discrimination. South Carolina filed an original bill of complaint in the Supreme Court seeking a declaration that selected provisions of the Act were invalid and an injunction against enforcement by the Attorney General. The case proceeded on original jurisdiction under Article III, Section 2, after the Court dispensed with a special master and expedited the hearing due to South Carolina's desire for a ruling before its June 1966 primary elections. The Act's coverage formula applied to any state or political subdivision that maintained a test or device on November 1, 1964, and where less than 50 percent of voting-age residents were registered or voted in the 1964 presidential election. South Carolina was brought within the formula on August 7, 1965, along with Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Virginia, twenty-six counties in North Carolina, and one county in Arizona. The challenged provisions included the suspension of literacy tests and similar devices under section 4(a), the preclearance requirement for new voting rules under section 5, and the authorization for the Attorney General to appoint federal examiners under section 6(b). South Carolina had altered its voting laws in 1965 to extend polling hours from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. but had not submitted the change for federal review. The Court invited all states to participate as amici curiae, several of which submitted briefs or argued orally.

Early in 1975, officials of Bessemer City, North Carolina, formed a five-member committee consisting of four men and one woman, Mrs. Auddie Boone, to hire a Recreation Director responsible for managing all city recreational facilities and developing athletic and other programs for residents. Eight persons applied for the position. Petitioner, a 39-year-old schoolteacher holding college degrees in social studies and education, was the only woman among them. After reviewing resumés and conducting brief interviews, the committee offered the job to Mr. Donald Kincaid, a 24-year-old recent college graduate with a degree in physical education; all four male members voted for Kincaid while Mrs. Boone voted for petitioner. Petitioner filed sex-discrimination charges with the Charlotte District Office of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. In July 1980 the EEOC District Director found reasonable cause to believe the charges were true, but conciliation efforts failed and petitioner received a right-to-sue letter. Petitioner then filed this Title VII action in the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina. After a two-day trial at which petitioner, Mr. Kincaid, and the five committee members testified, the district court issued a memorandum decision and, following submission of proposed findings by petitioner’s counsel and detailed objections by respondent, entered formal findings of fact and conclusions of law awarding petitioner $30,397 in backpay and $16,971.59 in attorney’s fees. The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed, holding clearly erroneous the district court’s findings that petitioner was the better-qualified candidate, that she alone had been asked questions about night work, travel, and spousal approval, and that the male committee members were biased against hiring a woman.