Jurellene Jorman v. Veterans Administration, and Harry N. Walters, Administrator, Defendants

This is an unusual case in which the role of the district court as trier of fact seems to me so key that it would be extraordinarily difficult for an appellate court to reach a result contrary to the one reached below. Cf. Munoz-Mendoza v. Pierce, 711 F.2d 421 (1st Cir.1983). And the case presents a problem where the task of the trier of fact is in effect to evaluate the significance of policies. The question is: what is the impact, if any, of various administrative and business practices on a complex social phenomenon like resegregation; are the practices “symptoms” or “causes”? Although it…