Davonte J. Coe v. United States

In Pullman-Standard v. Swint, 456 U.S. 273, 291-92 (1982), this Court held that when a “district court has failed to make a finding because of an erroneous view of the law,” an appellate court should “remand for further proceedings to permit the trial court to make the missing findings.” In this case, the Fourth Circuit, in an issue it raised and decided sua sponte, refused to either address the asserted legal error or remand for factfinding, by imposing a new requirement. Appellants, the Fourth Circuit held, must argue that a district court’s non-finding of fact was itself clearly erroneous. It then determined Mr. Coe’s excessive force claim in the first instance on appeal, on an incomplete set of facts. The questions presented are:

1. When a district court declines to make factual findings because an antecedent legal ruling makes those findings unnecessary, and an appellant challenges that legal ruling on appeal, must the appellant also independently allege and establish that the district court’s failure to make those findings was clearly erroneous; or does Pullman-Standard v. Swint, 456 U.S. 273 (1982), require the court of appeals to resolve the legal question and, if it finds error, remand for the district court to make the missing findings in the first instance? and

2. Did the Fourth Circuit again violate the party presentation principle by raising and deciding a dispositive issue neither argued nor briefed by either party? PARTIES TO THE PROCEEDINGS All parties appear in the caption of the case on the cover page. -i-