Winning an Appeal

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Only about 10% of appeals are successful.

You will have to balance the costs of the appeal versus the likelihood that you will win.

Costs of an Appeal

1.  Worth the Money?

  • Filing Fee - $223 unless waived.
  • Appeal Cost Bond - $250 unless waived.
  • Transcript - About $150 for every hour in court.
    • This cost is not waivable.

2.  Worth the Time and Effort? 

  • Length of Case - About 1 year.
  • Efforts - A 20-page research paper.

3.  Worth the Conflict? 

  • An appeal will extend the conflict in your life.
  • That will take an emotional toll on you and your family.

Limits of an Appeal

1.   Assumed to be Good

  • The Court of Appeals will assume the final order is acceptable.
  • The burden is entirely on you to show otherwise.

2.  No New Evidence

  • An appellate court can only consider evidence provided at the hearing or in the motion.
  • No new evidence will be accepted or considered.

3.  Believability

  • Only the deciding court can determine which witnesses were lying.
  • Only the deciding court can determine how much to believe the exhibits.
  • Your one opportunity to show that a witness was lying, or challenge the value of exhibits, happened at the hearing.

4.  No New Issues

  • Courts want to be as efficient as possible.
  • An appeals court will only review the decisions made in the final order.
  • If a Magistrate Review was required, the Court of Appeals will only consider the issues raised in the Petition for Magistrate Review.

What it Takes to Win

1.  Wrong Law

  • An appeals court will change the final order if the wrong law was used.

2.  Clearly Wrong Facts:  

  • An appeals court will change the final order if:
    • The deciding court made-up facts. Or,
    • It made unreasonable assumptions about the facts.

3. Can't Make That Decision: 

  • The decision made was not among the possible decisions that could have been made. 
  • That happens when:
    • The law was applied incorrectly,
    • A factor was considered that should not have been,
    • A factor was not considered that should have been, or
    • A clearly wrong fact (see the section above) was relied on to make the decision.

4.  Harmless Error: 

  • If the outcome of the case would be the same, even if the error was fixed, then the appeals court will keep the final orders anyway.