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
Are you planning on buying a house? If you are, you’re going to love the Buyer's Market definition. But if you are a home seller, you will wish that term never comes up again in your ...
Process of the borrower giving the lender security to obtain the loan. ...
Statutes stipulating that the property of deceased individuals is distributed in a way that assumes that property during marriage is jointly owned and equally shared by the spouses ...
An interim or provisional court decree, which is not final and can be reversed or amended, normally issued to direct additional proceedings prior to issuing a final decree. For example, an ...
Classification of one's ownership rights in land. One way either buy the land and own all rights to it or lease it where one's rights are described in and limited by the lease agreement. ...
Time interval between buying a real estate investment and selling it. A sound way to determine the return from a real estate investment is over its life. For example, if land was bought on ...
Expenditures incurred to initially purchase property, including incidental costs necessary to put the property into existing use and location. This cost is then depreciated over the assets ...
Also called the Rule of the Sum of the Digits. An approach that bank use to formulate a loan amortization schedule. It results in a borrower paying more interest in the beginning of a ...
Document evidencing the passage of title to a purchaser of property sold for taxes. The tax deed is issued upon foreclosure of the property lien. Typically, there is a grace time period ...

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