stating that a question is "fact-like" if resolution of it "would often be affected by [a trial judge's] observation of a competing 'witness's appearance and demeanor' on matters 'that cannot be adequately reflected in the record available to appellate courts'" (citation omitted)
How later courts described this case
- stating that a question is "fact-like" if resolution of it "would often be affected by [a trial judge's] observation of a competing 'witness's appearance and demeanor' on matters 'that cannot be adequately reflected in the record available to appellate courts'" (citation omitted)
- explaining that factual findings "entail[ ] the empirical, such as things, events, actions, or conditions happening, existing, or taking place, as well as the subjective, such as state of mind" (alteration in original) (citation omitted) (internal quotation marks omitted)
- explaining that "[flindings of fact are entitled to the most deference" and that "Isluch findings 'are accordingly overturned 'only when clearly erroneous" (citation and internal quotation marks omitted)
- explaining that some “factual and mixed findings” may contain, by implication, determinations regarding “embedded legal questions,” and that we review “embedded legal conclusion[s]” without deference
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Justice DURHAM,
concurring:
193 I join fully in the majority opinion offered by Justice Lee; I write separately to highlight the difficult balance between competing rights struck by the statute and by our application of it in this case. It is true, as the dissent notes, that the result of this decision means hardship for Baby B. and her adoptive family. It is equally true that the opposite result would mean hardship for a father whose rights to form a relationship with his child and be part of her life (and arguably Baby B.'s right to know him and benefit from his care and concern) would be cut off notwithstanding the statutory protections afforded him. The legislature may well, as the dissent asserts, have identified maternal privacy and finality in adoptions as primary values. But antecedent to those goals are constitutional rights, inchoate or realized, that all biological parents have in associations with their children. In my view, the majority approach accepts the policy choices made by the legislature in drafting this statute and construes its language in a manner that honors those choices as expressed in that language. The majority and the dissent interpret the legal import of the *406 facts differently, but both, I believe, seek to give full force to the legislature's intent.