Even if you lost a case in San Diego Superior Court or other California court, all may not be over yet. If you want to challenge the verdict or order, you could have good reason to appeal. An appeal isn’t quite a “second bite at the apple” because California law limits what an appeals court can do when reviewing the decision in your trial, but it still gives you the opportunity that you may need to reverse a defeat in your lawsuit. In most instances, an appeal won’t be a brand new trial where you get to question new witnesses and put new issues on the table. This is because generally the court of appeal can only look at the record of evidence that was submitted during the trial, meaning you’re prevented from introducing any new evidence or bringing up issues that weren’t raised at trial.
The court of appeal will review the trial court’s decision by applying different legal standards, and these can give a great deal of deference to the trial court’s decision, making things more difficult for the party who’s appealing. Which standard is used will depend on the circumstances of your case, including whether your case was decided by a judge or jury. For example, two common standards of review are abuse of discretion and substantial evidence. The details of these standards of review can become complex, but essentially the abuse of discretion standard is applied if you’re challenging discretionary decisions that a judge made, and abuse will only be found when the decision is clearly unreasonable or arbitrary. When the appeals court is reviewing the factual conclusions made by a judge or jury, then the substantial evidence standard is applied instead. This means that the court of appeal will be looking to see whether it’s possible that a reasonable person looking at the facts could have made the same factual finding as the judge or jury made. No matter what standard has been used, in the end the appeals court will decide to either let the trial court’s judgment or ruling stand; modify it; or reverse the judgment or part of it, in which case the lawsuit is often sent back to the trial court for retrial or with other instructions.
Before any potential appeal is begun, it might also be possible to challenge the decision by filing a “post trial motion.” These after trial requests are not appeals, so the motion will be heard by the trial court, not the California Court of Appeal. Typically, a post trial motion must be made very soon after the judgment. Two of the better known post trial motions are a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict (JNOV), and a motion for a new trial. When requesting a JNOV, you ask the judge to enter a judgment in your favor, in spite of a jury verdict that says you lost. As you can imagine, this is an extreme request. For that reason a JNOV will only be granted when the jury’s verdict isn’t supported by sufficient evidence, which shows that no reasonable jury could have come to its decision. On the other hand, the reasons behind a motion for a new trial often revolve around claims of tainted court proceedings. Here, you may argue that there was misconduct on the part of the jury, that the amount of money awarded was either too little or excessive, that there’s new evidence that couldn’t have been discovered before trial, that there was an irregularity in the proceedings, and so on. When this results in a miscarriage of justice, the judge can order that your case be tried again. If you don’t succeed on a post trial motion, we’ll assess whether you meet the legal requirements to file an appeal and evaluate its merits so you can decide on your best course of action. As attorneys experienced in both litigation and appeals work, we’re prepared to pursue your appeal and can handle the appeal even if you had a different lawyer at trial. After careful and detailed research, we’ll persuasively present your appeal through written briefs and oral arguments, or diligently defend against the appeal if you were the winning party at trial. There are strict deadlines to file an appeal that generally expire soon after the decision in your lawsuit is made, so avoid any delay and contact San Diego Law Firm at (619) 794-0243.
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