ly erroneous, and due regard shall be given to the opportunity of the trial court to judge of the credibility of the witness-es_ It will be sufficient if the findings of fact and conclusions of law ... appear in an opinion or memorandum of decision filed by the court....
This section requires judges, when conducting a case without a jury to set out findings of fact and conclusions of law in order to provide appellate courts with a clear basis for review and to assist the court in making its initial judgment. Bartsh v. Northwest Airlines, Inc., 831 F.2d 1297, 1304 (7th Cir.1987).
A court’s “findings are adequate if they are sufficiently comprehensive to disclose the steps by which the trial court reached its ultimate conclusion on factual issues.”
Id. (citing
Lodges 743 and 1746, International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, AFL-CIO v. United Aircraft Corporation, 534 F.2d 422, 433 (2d Cir.1975),
cert. denied, 429 U.S. 825, 97 S.Ct. 79, 50 L.Ed.2d 87 (1976)). A court, however, “need not indulge in exegetics, or parse or declaim every fact and nuance and hypothesis.”
Id. (quoting
Monarch Beverage Co., Inc. v. Tyfield Importers, Inc., 823 F.2d 1187, 1192 (7th Cir.1987) (citations omitted)). Rather, the judge should make factual findings with regard to the critical issues which form the basis of its decision.
Id. at 1306.
A court’s factual findings are reviewable on a clearly erroneous standard. E.E.O.C. v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 839 F.2d 302, 309 (7th Cir.1988). In other words, the court’s factual determinations are only to be reversed if “the reviewing court on the entire evidence is left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed,” i.e. that “the trial judge’s interpretation of the facts is implausible, illogical, internally inconsistent or contradicted by documentary or other extrinsic evidence.” Id. (quoting Anderson v. City of Bessemer City, 470 U.S. 564, 573, 105 S.Ct. 1504, 1511, 84 L.Ed.2d 518 (1985) (quoting United States v. United States Gypsum Co., 333 U.S. 364, 395, 68 S.Ct. 525, 542, 92 L.Ed. 746 (1948)) and Ratliff v. City of Milwaukee, 795 F.2d 612, 617 (7th Cir. 1986)).
In this case the counter-defendants assert that this court failed to make proper findings of fact with respect to the auction conducted by Summit Bank. The counter-defendants point to a sentence on page nine of this court’s previous order and claim that the court merely concluded that Summit Bank conducted the auction in a public and professional manner without finding specific facts with regard to the issue. Counter-defendants apparently ignore the rest of the court’s eleven-page order in making this argument. In the previous pages of the order the court stated several particular factual findings concerning Summit Bank’s conduct with respect to the auction.
This court found3 in its order of June 23, 1987 that Summit Bank chose to proceed with an auction sale of the debtor’s inventory only after allowing the Stollers to attempt to sell the merchandise themselves. Order of June 23, 1987 (“Order”) at 3. The court further determined that liquidating inventory was a commercially acceptable practice of disposing of property which also was permitted by the debtor’s leasehold interest in its Coliseum Boulevard store. Order at 8 and 4. The court indicated that the parties agreed an auction should take place and agreed upon the time and location of the sale, that when a flood occurred the parties further agreed that the auction would take place elsewhere, and that the parties selected auctioneers who advertised the auction through color brochures, direct-mail flyers, newspaper inserts and commercial time through local radio and television stations. Order at 4.
The court noted in its Order that while the auction was open to the public and was conducted in a professional manner, the
3
The court acknowledges that it did not label its factual findings in the June 23, 1987 as "findings of fact.” The court does not believe, however, that such labeling is required by Fed. R.Civ.P. 52(a). The court made specific findings of fact and set them forth as facts in the pages of its order.