Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 1).pdf/534

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510
NORTH DAKOTA REPORTS.

necessarily finds as ultimate facts all matters of fact relevant or otherwise which are contained in Exhibit C, which, as before stated, is a voluminous record of the administrative acts and doings of the defendant during a period of some five years, and the bulk of which cannot, of course, have any direct connection with any of the questions in litigation here, but some of which, as counsel claim, do bear upon the issues of this case.

Counsel are at loggerheads in their briefs as to what ultimate facts appear and what do not appear in Exhibit C. Respondent’s counsel contends that certain facts—some of which are pertinent, and others claimed not to be so--are duly found by the court, because the court adopts Exhibit C as a part of its findings of fact; and, on the other hand, the appellant’s counsel contends that certain specific facts material to a determination of the case are proven either positively or negatively by Exhibit C, but that such facts are not enunciated and embodied in the findings of the court, nor in the stipulated facts, and hence are practically useless in disposing of the case. It is obvious that this confusion comes about solely because the letter and spirit of the statute were violated when the trial court assumed to substitute for express findings upon material and ultimate facts in issue certain evidence and evidential facts submitted at the trial and agreed to by counsel. In Wagner v. Nagel, (Minn.) 23 N. W. Rep. 308, the court say: “A conclusive reason why this judgment must be reversed is that there are no findings to support it. The so-called findings are mere statements of evidence.” As to indefinite findings, see Templen v. Plattner, (Iowa) id. 664; Demming v. Weston, 15 Wis. 236-238. The supreme court of Missouri say: “A finding of facts which does not cover all the matters put in issue by the pleadings is insufficient, and ground of reversal.” Downing v. Bourlier, 21 Mo. 149. Judgments were reversed in the following cases for insufficient findings of fact: Bates v. Wilbur, 10 Wis. 415; Reich v. Mining Co., 3 Utah, 254, 2 Pac. Rep. 703; Bowman v. Ayers, (Idaho) 13 Pac. Rep. 346; Conlan v. Grace, (Minn.) 30 N. W. Rep. 880. We do not hold that it would be impossible to so stipulate the facts at the trial that they would be at once so explicit and so responsive to the issues that they could be adopted