Standards of Review on Appeal: Overlook Them or Treat Them Lightly at Your Peril
May 2012 – ArticleThis article discusses the different standards of review on appeal, familiarizes the reader with the standards and how to identify them, and detailed the requirement of stating them in an appellate brief and the need to argue the facts and law to the standard of review. The article makes clear:
The requirements for appellate briefs are clearly set forth in the Court rules and, as the Court has stated, "were created, not to provide an obstacle, but to aid parties in presenting their arguments in a manner most likely to be fully and efficiently comprehended by this Court." The purpose of this article is to introduce the reader (or re-introduce) to the rule requiring an appellate brief to have a statement of the applicable standard of review, to familiarize the reader with the often incorrectly applied standards of review to be used when appealing, and to provide the reader with the knowledge and tools to avoid having unfortunately critical verbiage, or language similar thereto, directed as the reader's appeal brief.