## Facts

- Bessemer City, North Carolina, sought a Recreation Director to manage facilities and develop recreational programs.
- A five-member selection committee (four men, one woman) interviewed eight applicants; Phyllis A. Anderson, a 39-year-old schoolteacher, was the only woman.
- The committee selected a 24-year-old male applicant with a recent physical-education degree; the four male members voted for him, and the lone female member voted for Anderson.
- Anderson was asked interview questions about her husband’s attitude toward her taking the job; the district court found similar questions were not posed to other applicants.
- Anderson filed an EEOC charge; after a reasonable-cause finding and failed conciliation, she received a right-to-sue letter and filed a Title VII sex-discrimination action.

## Issues

1. Whether the court of appeals misapplied Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 52(a) by setting aside the district court’s factual findings, including the finding of sex discrimination, as “clearly erroneous.”
2. Whether a district court’s adoption of a party’s proposed findings reduces the deference owed to those findings on appeal.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the Fourth Circuit and reinstated the district court’s judgment for Anderson.
- The Court held the Fourth Circuit misapprehended the “clearly erroneous” standard by reweighing evidence and substituting its own credibility and motive assessments.
- The Court rejected the view that the district court’s use of proposed findings altered the Rule 52(a) standard; the findings remained those of the court and were reviewable only for clear error.
- Because the district court’s account of the evidence was plausible on the full record, the appellate court lacked a basis to overturn the finding of discrimination.

## Legal Principles

- Under Rule 52(a), findings of fact “shall not be set aside unless clearly erroneous,” whether based on oral testimony or documents.
- A finding is clearly erroneous only when the reviewing court, on the entire evidence, is left with a definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been made.
- If the district court’s account of the evidence is plausible in light of the whole record, an appellate court may not reverse merely because it would have weighed the evidence differently.
- Credibility-based findings receive especially strong deference because the trial judge observes witness demeanor and tone.
- Even when a trial judge adopts a party’s proposed findings (including verbatim adoption), those findings are attributable to the court and remain subject only to clear-error review.
- Where two permissible views of the evidence exist, the factfinder’s choice between them cannot be clearly erroneous.

## Conclusion

The Supreme Court held that appellate courts must give strong deference to district-court factfinding under Rule 52(a), including determinations of discriminatory intent in Title VII bench trials, and may not overturn plausible findings—regardless of reliance on proposed findings—absent clear error.


Anderson v. City of Bessemer City, 470 U.S. 564 (1985)