Common Mistakes When Planning for and Making Appeals

When your business law trial is over, if it doesn’t turn out the way that you had planned, you do have the option of an appeal. An appeal is a way of asking a higher court to find mistakes in something that happened in the lower, trial court, and thus, overturn the decision, or give you a second bite at the apple (specifically, a new trial).

But even though appeals happen after a trial is over, the time to plan for a potential appeal is as soon as your initial case begins. Here are some things that many people, and even attorneys, often don’t realize when looking at the prospect of and planning for an appeal.

Get a court reporter – Court reporters cost money and so many are hesitant to pay for them. But it is nearly impossible for an appellate court to evaluate the actions and decision-making of a trial court when the appellate court has no idea what was said in the trial court hearing or trial.

That’s why having a court reporter is imperative to preserve your right to appeal—the appellate court now knows who said what, and what the judge’s decision making process was, now that there is a transcript of the hearing or trial.

Timing – Some decisions that a trial court judge makes can be appealed right away—even smack in the middle of your case. That is called an interlocutory appeal. But other times, you have to wait until the entirety of your case is over (usually, once the trial is over and the judge or jury has made its decision).

If you don’t appeal something early, you could lose the right to do so later. But if you appeal something too early, your appeal could be dismissed. That means it’s important to know what can and what cannot be appealed, and when.

Not preserving error – Before you can say that the trial court did something wrong that the appellate court should reverse or change, you need to give the trial court judge the chance to consider the decision. In plain terms, that means that if you don’t object to something in a trial or hearing, or if you don’t raise an argument for the trial court to consider and decide on, you can’t later ask the appellate court to say that there was error.

This is called preserving error. Not objecting to something objectionable when the issue comes up can forever bar you from ever having an appellate court consider the trial court’s supposed error.

The same goes with making arguments in trial court. An appellate court won’t hear an argument for the first time on appeal. That means if you have an argument or position, it needs to be said during the trial.

You can still settle – Just like in the trial court, parties can settle the case, even when an appeal is pending. Often the filing of an appeal is a catalyst to get parties to the settlement table.

Business law appeals? Ask us for help. The West Palm Beach commercial litigation attorneys at Pike & Lustig are prepared to help you today.

Source:

flcourts.gov/content/download/219033/file/appellate-court-procedures.pdf