Norwest Trucking Corporation files a suit in a state court against Bob's Service Company (BSC), and wins. BSC appeals the court's decision, asserting that the evidence presented at trial to support Norwest's claim was so scanty that no reasonable jury

Question

could have found for the plaintiff. Therefore, argues BSC, the appellate court should reverse the trial court's decision. Is the appellate court likely to reverse the trial court's findings with respect to the facts? If not, why not? What are an appellate court's options after reviewing a case?

Answer 1

An appellate court will reverse a lower court's decision on the basis of the facts if the evidence does not support the findings or if it contradicts them. Appellate courts normally defer to a trial court's decision with regard to the facts of a case, however, for several reasons. First, trial judges and juries have the opportunity to observe witnesses and tangible evidence first hand. The appellate court sees only a cold record of the trial court proceedings and therefore cannot make the kind of judgments about the credibility of witnesses and the persuasiveness of evidence that can be gleaned only from first hand experience. Second, as occurs when there is no jury and the case is heard by a judge, trial judges routinely sit as fact finders. As a result, they develop a particular expertise in determining what kind of evidence and testimony is reliable and what kind is not. (There are also constitutional reasons for an appellate court to defer to a jury verdict. If, based on the evidence presented to a jury, a reasonable person could have come to the same decision that the jury came to, an appellate court cannot reverse the jury's decision with regard to the facts because this would, in essence, take away a person's right to a jury trial.) An appellate court's options after reviewing a case are to affirm the trial court's judgment, to reverse it in whole, to reverse it in part, to modify the decision, or to remand the case for further proceedings.