As stated in the fourth paragraph of the court's edited opinion, the trial court did this in order "[t]o obviate the necessity of a retrial in the event that" the court on appeal determined that the trial court was wrong. In effect, the court did this in order to save the additional expense and delay that would otherwise result if the appellate court determined that the trial court had made a decision in its ruling (that denied the plaintiff's claim for "battery").
Did the trial court actually believe that its decision in this case was incorrect,? Or was the trial court just being cautious by doing this?
From this case, we really cannot be certain. But, usually the trial court will NOT continue to make additional fact findings once it makes a final ruling that otherwise disposes of the case at the trial stage of the proceeding. However, since there was no jury involved in this case, making such an additional "finding" of fact (as to the plaintiff's damages) was not all that burdensome or difficult for the trial court to do. So here it probably does make sense that the trial court went ahead and made this additional finding.