Jason Brown provides another family law segment. In this video, you will learn about: (1) the timelines associated with appealing your divorce decree; (2) the legal standard applied by the Minnesota Court of Appeals; and (3) the odds of success on appeal. Hiring the right appellate lawyer makes a significant difference in your chances of winning on appeal.
Transcript
In the event that you’re dissatisfied with the decision of the District Court judge, you do have the right to appeal to the Minnesota Court of Appeals. You must do so within 60 days of the entry of that order. Every litigant has the opportunity to file that appeal with the Court of Appeals. Whereas with the Minnesota Supreme Court, they select which cases they want to hear, and a Supreme Court case must go through the Court of Appeals first. So the first step in having that initial judge’s order reversed or remanded would be to file that notice of appeal.
Statistically, appeals are not successful all that often. Frankly, about 15% of the time cases are successfully reversed or remanded back down to the District Court. It’s not that we’re discouraging you from filing an appeal if you’re dissatisfied with the outcome, because there certainly are times and places for that to occur. But they are challenging, and District Court judges have a wide deal of discretion in issuing their orders.
Should you choose to file the appeal, we would need to file a notice of you doing so, and then brief the case so that you have an opportunity to present your legal issues to the Court of Appeals.
The legal standard employed by the Court of Appeals is typically an abuse of discretion standard, meaning that unless the District Court judge abused his or her discretion in rendering a particular opinion, that decision is going to stick.
Feel free to reach out to Jason with any concerns you have about filing a family law appeal with the Minnesota Court of Appeals or Minnesota Supreme Court. Call (763) 783-5146.