Appeals

Unfortunately, trial court judges, referees, and magistrates are not perfect; sometimes you may feel that they have made erroneous findings of fact, have not correctly applied the law to your case, or have abused their broad discretion resulting in an unfair result. If a trial court makes an error that so substantially circumvents the law or flies in the face of logic given the facts of the case, a party to a family court proceeding has the right to have the decision reviewed by the Minnesota Court of Appeals.

It is important to realize that the Court of Appeals is not a forum for re-trying a case or for presenting additional evidence which, had the trial court judge known about it, might have caused the judge to make a different decision. The Court of Appeals is required to decide whether the trial court judge improperly applied the law or abused its discretion by reaching conclusions not supported by the evidence in the record at the time the matter was tried or argued to the trial judge.

The appeal process

At the Court of Appeals, a panel of three judges is assigned to each case. The party who initiates the appeal, called the appellant, after filing the necessary paperwork to commence the appeal, will order a written transcript of the trial or any argument that occurred before the trial judge, if the appeal is from a post-decree motion rather than a trial. Once the transcript is completed, the appellant in most cases has thirty days to file a brief (written summary) outlining the important facts of the case and presenting argument as to why the trial court’s decision should be reversed. The brief will direct the court to portions of the transcript supporting appellant’s argument.

The responding party, called the respondent, then has the opportunity to file a responsive brief within thirty days, presenting counter arguments for why the trial court’s decision is justified and should be affirmed. If the respondent desires, he/she may also raise his/her own issues on appeal. The appellant then is afforded the opportunity to submit a reply brief, due ten days thereafter, responding only to new facts or issues raised in the respondent’s brief.

After both sides' briefs are submitted, the Court of Appeals will schedule oral arguments before the three-judge panel. These arguments normally take place at the Court of Appeals courtrooms near the capitol in St. Paul. Arguments are typically scheduled within three to eight months after the last brief is filed. However, if an issue raised on appeal involves custody or parenting time, the Court of Appeals will shorten all of the timeframes for hearing the case and issuing an opinion.

At oral argument, appellant’s lawyer is given fifteen minutes to argue, the respondent’s lawyer is given fifteen minutes to respond, and finally appellant’s lawyer is given five minutes to reply. The judges on the panel are allowed to, and often do, interrupt the attorneys’ arguments frequently, asking questions to probe the soundness of each party’s position and argument.

Once the argument is completed, the panel will privately discuss your case, and then one of the three judges will write an opinion on behalf of the three-judge panel. Occasionally, not all three judges will agree, in which case a majority of two is necessary to reach an opinion, with the third judge occasionally writing a separate opinion dissenting from the majority opinion. Written opinions from the Court of Appeals are to be issued within ninety days of oral argument. The opinions are available by internet once issued. If the decision is considered unique involving a new point of law, the opinion will be “published,” ultimately appearing in a bound book which reports all published cases. Unpublished cases, which constitute the majority of opinions issued by the Court of Appeals, are still available to lawyers to refer to, but do not carry the same precedential value to attorneys and the court as do published cases.

Court of Appeals decisions may affirm the lower court's decision in its entirety, may reverse a lower courts’ decision in its entirety, or may affirm part of the decision and reverse part of the decision. If a portion of the trial court decision is reversed, the matter usually will be sent back down to the trial judge to correct errors found by the appellate panel. While sometimes these remands are accompanied by specific instructions from the Court of Appeals as to what needs to be done to correct the errors, in other cases the remand is less specific in terms of what the lower court needs to do to correct the error. Occasionally, depending on the issues present, the Court of Appeals opinion itself will resolve the issue.

Supreme Court discretionary review

In rare instances, a party who is not satisfied with a Court of Appeals decision may ask the Minnesota Supreme Court to review the decision. The Minnesota Supreme Court may, but is not required to, accept a case for review if:

the issue is an important one upon which the Supreme Court should rule;
the Court of Appeals has ruled on the constitutionality of a statute;
the lower courts have so far departed from the accepted and usual course of justice as to call for an exercise of the Supreme Court’s supervisory powers; or
a decision by the Supreme Court will help develop, clarify, or harmonize the law, and
the case calls for the application of a new principle or policy; or
the resolution of the question presented has possible statewide impact; or
the question is likely to recur unless resolved by the Supreme Court.

Typically, the Minnesota Supreme Court will only accept for review one or two family law cases each year for consideration. If the Supreme Court accepts a case, new briefs are submitted to the Supreme Court. Oral argument then takes place before a seven-judge panel. A Supreme Court opinion, once issued, is very important, as only important or unique legal issues are accepted for review by the Supreme Court.

Once the Supreme Court rules, the matter will typically be remanded to the trial court, just as with a Court of Appeals opinion.

Once the Supreme Court rules, the appellate process is over, unless a U.S. Constitutional argument is presented and a party seeks review at the U.S. Supreme Court level. Such attempts at U.S. Supreme Court review of family law issues are very rare.

The importance of making a timely decision to appeal

There are strict rules limiting the time during which an appeal from a district court decision may be brought. It is extremely important that a decision about whether to file an appeal be made quickly. If the appeal deadline passes before an appeal is filed, then the trial court’s decision will stand, even if it involves a clear misapplication of settled law.

Parties must recognize that just because they may be unhappy with a trial court’s decision, it is not always wise to file an appeal. There are substantial costs connected with the appeal process, in addition to the attorney fees that will be incurred. The appeals process may easily take a year to complete.

An experienced attorney can review a trial court’s decision, offer an opinion as to whether the trial court made a mistake that the Court of Appeals might change, and advise a client about whether an appeal would likely bring about different results. Even if a trial court judge made an error, it may not be worth the time and expense of bringing an appeal to correct the mistake.

The attorneys at Katz, Manka, Teplinsky, Graves & Sobol, Ltd. have participated in hundreds of appeals, both at the Court of Appeals and at the Minnesota Supreme Court, and have been very successful in our appellate practice, having participated in numerous important family law rulings still cited today as precedent. We have the experience necessary to review a decision objectively and offer our opinion as to whether there is a legal basis for an appeal, and whether an appeal is likely to succeed. We can then assist our clients in formulating and presenting the best arguments possible to convince the appellate courts that our clients' deserve relief from an erroneous lower court decision.