Standard of review

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Standard of review is the "view" an appellate court gives to an issue on appeal. The standard of review may be set by statute, rule or precedent. The standard of review describes the level of deference given to the reviewed decision.

[edit] United States

In the United States, a finding of fact from a jury is seldom disturbed on appeal. Similarly, a government agency's decision of an administrative law is reviewed on the arbitrary and capricious standard. Arbitrary and capricious is a legal ruling wherein an appellate court determines that a previous ruling is invalid because it was made on unreasonable grounds or without proper consideration of circumstances.

Decisions of lower courts are generally reviewed under one of three standards of review, depending on the kind of decision under consideration. Where a lower court has made a discretionary ruling (such as whether to allow a party claiming a hardship to file a brief after the deadline), that decision will be reviewed for abuse of discretion. Where a lower court makes a finding of fact, it will be reviewed for clear error. Finally, a finding of law is reviewed de novo - as if the reviewing court were considering the question for the first time.

When exercising judicial review of a statute for constitutionality, the appropriate standard of review envisioned by the framers of the Constitution was "irreconcilable variance" between the statute and the Constitution.

[edit] Canada

In Canada, a decisions of tribunals and other government bodies can be reviewed on a number of standards depending on the circumstances. The three standards applied are "correctness", "unreasonableness", and patent unreasonableness, each providing a varying degree of deference to the decision-maker.