Opinion ID: 2509187
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: coca erred in its selection and application of the proper standard of review

Text: ¶ 6 We first turn to Capshaw's argument that COCA's pronouncement fails to apply the correct standard of appellate review. COCA's opinion reveals that the issue before it was reviewed as one of law [12] and the standard to be used as that of abused discretion. [13] It then references the terms of 20 O.S.2001 § 3001.1, [14] whose review standard deals with appellate reversal of a jury verdict by granting a new trial. This confusion is magnified by some of COCA's language that appears later in the opinion and, according to Capshaw, incorrectly places the burden of proof on him as the appellee. [15] ¶ 7 A motion for new trial is addressed to the sound discretion of the trial court. [16] When a trial court grants a new trial and its decision is appealed, we will indulge every presumption in favor of that decision's correctness. [17] In reviewing a trial court's grant of new trial, the standard of review an appellate court must apply is whether the trial court abused its discretion. [18] Because a trial court's discretion is broad its ruling will not be disturbed by the reviewing tribunal in the absence of a clear showing of a manifest error or abuse of discretion with respect to a pure, simple and unmixed material question of law. [19] ¶ 8 An appellate court's standard of review is not mere ritualistic legal liturgy. It defines the permissible sweep of critical testing to be undertaken by a reviewing court. Its recitation must be correct and serve more significantly than as an empty gesture. [20] Although initially identifying and appearing to apply the correct standard of review  abuse of discretion  COCA also injects a different standard, that embodied in the terms of § 3001.1. [21] The cited provision is inapplicable to today's procedural scenario. That section targets only appellate dispositions that reverse judgments on jury verdict by granting a new trial. Today's cause does not deal with that type of disposition. Even if we were to conclude that the § 3001.1 criteria were not employed by COCA  and hence their insertion merely superfluous  COCA's reference to those statutory terms appears misleading. ¶ 9 Moreover, the burden to establish a trial court's abused discretion when granting a new trial rests upon the appellant, not on the appellee. COCA's choice of words  Capshaw has not show(n) otherwise  seemingly infers that appellee has not met his burden to show the trial court's decision is error free. It was Coronado's, not Capshaw's, burden on appeal to show that the trial judge abused his discretion in deciding a critical question of law. In view of its reference to conflicting tests and of COCA's oblique language for defining an appellant's burden on review, we cannot say that COCA's pronouncement was guided by the correctly applicable standard of review.