Appellant
The appellant definition references a concept related to legal proceedings. The appellant is the individual who is dissatisfied with the judgment in a lawsuit and asks for a superior court to review the decision. In order to appeal a court’s decision, the appellant must show that they have sufficient grounds for an appeal. Without sufficient grounds, they can not challenge the court’s judgment.
What does Appellant Mean?
In order to define appellant, we must understand how general legal proceedings go. For example, if John sues Jane and wins, Jane is allowed to file an appeal if she is dissatisfied with the result of the initial suit. In that case, Jane is the appellant and John is the appellee. If Jane wins the appeal, John can appeal as well, and the roles are reversed. In this case, the word appellant can be replaced by petitioner.
The most common situation when an appellant can appeal a lawsuit is if they lost in the trial court and appeal to the supreme court for a reversal or modification of the trial court judgment. The status of the appellant isn’t relevant as either plaintiff or defendant can become appellants. Similarly, it doesn’t matter if the appellant won or lost the case. If they have enough grounds to appeal the court’s decision and ask for a superior court to review the decision, they can.
How can one Become an Appellant?
As stated above, a trial court has to occur where one of the parties is dissatisfied with the result. Either the plaintiff or defendant can have grounds for appeal, even if they win the case. The decision to appeal comes from that dissatisfaction or the belief that the court made a mistake. Whether the appellant lost the case at the lower court level or won and was unhappy with the lower court’s decision, they can appeal to a higher court to review the decision.
Some legitimate legal grounds for an appeal are jurisdiction, jury instructions, evidentiary error.
Popular Real Estate Terms
The amount of money a developer must directly invest in order to obtain a development loan. It pays for the initial development cost including costs for items such as architectural plans, ...
Right to an item belongs to the public at large so anyone can use it. An example is a real estate software program that is publicly available by an electronic bulletin board service. ...
An agreement by which a mortgage is made subject to a junior mortgage. For example, a loan on a vacant lot is made subject to a subsequent construction loan. ...
A binding judicial determination of the rights and standing of litigants. A declaratory judgment does not result in any relief for the action brought before the court. It merely ...
Same as term contract for deed: Method of selling and financing property whereby the buyer obtains possession, but the seller retains the title. ...
Legal contract in which the lender controls the pledged property being financed. The agreement describes the property and its location. Of default occurs, the lender may sell the ...
Association of the owners of all condominium units in a building that is concerned with managing day-to-day matters in the building complex, including the surrounding and enforcing ...
The definition of a property brief is a document including the summarization of the attributes and characteristics of the property. Officially issued legal records are supposed to include ...
Any property, tangible or otherwise, except real estate. For example, furniture or automobiles. ...

Have a question or comment?
We're here to help.