Circuit split arises when two or more circuits in the U.S. Court of Appeals reach different decisions on the same legal issue. This disagreement means federal law is applied differently in different parts of the country, so that similarly...
appellate procedure
clearly erroneous
The “clearly erroneous” standard is a standard of review in civil appellate proceedings. In the United States v. United States Gypsum Co. the Supreme Court stated that the Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 52(a) provides that “a finding is ‘...
clearly erroneous test
The clearly erroneous test is a test used by appellate courts when reviewing a holding by a lower court. The test, established by Rule 52(a) of the Federal Rules Civil Procedure, states that fact findings by a judge in a nonjury trial stand...
collateral attack
A collateral attack, also called an indirect attack, is a challenge on the validity of a prior judgment through a new case rather than by a direct appeal. Examples include habeas corpus petitions and claims that a prior judgment was invalid...
collateral estoppel
Collateral estoppel is an important doctrine in the fields of criminal law and civil procedure.
In criminal law, collateral estoppel protects criminal defendants from being tried for the same issue in more than one criminal...
collateral order doctrine
The collateral order doctrine is an exception to the general rule against allowing interlocutory appeals (appeals on a temporary order issued during the course of litigation). This doctrine traces its origins to the case Cohen v. Beneficial...
court of appeal(s)
In a legal context, the Court of Appeal(s) has multiple meanings:
First, the Court of Appeal(s) could be an intermediate appellate court. In this instance, it would be any state or federal court that hears appeals from rulings and...
cross-appeal
A cross-appeal is a request filed by an appellee requesting that a higher court review a decision made by a lower court. The difference between an appeal and a cross-appeal is essentially arbitrary and dependent only on who filed the request...
Daubert Standard
The “Daubert Standard” provides a systematic framework for a trial court judge to assess the reliability and relevance of expert witness testimony before it is presented to a jury. Established in the 1993 U.S. Supreme Court case Daubert v....
de novo
De novo is a Latin term that means "anew," "from the beginning," or "afresh." When a court hears a case “de novo,” it is deciding the issues without reference to any legal conclusion or assumption made by the previous court to hear the case....