Plainly wrong
English law and wider common law jurisprudence have endorsed the condition that an appellate court should reject a trial judge's finding of fact which it believes is “plainly wrong”. Courts have not explained what makes a finding plainly wrong, however. Scholars have largely ignored the issue....
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Journal article |
| Language: | English |
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Wiley
2022
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| _version_ | 1826309058784657408 |
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| author | Perry, A |
| author_facet | Perry, A |
| author_sort | Perry, A |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | English law and wider common law jurisprudence have endorsed the condition that an appellate court should reject a trial judge's finding of fact which it believes is “plainly wrong”. Courts have not explained what makes a finding plainly wrong, however. Scholars have largely ignored the issue. This article draws on recent work in epistemology to provide a new analysis of the plainly wrong standard. Rationally, a court should not believe both (1) that a judge is a better fact finder and (2) that the judge was wrong to find some fact. If it does believe both, it should abandon the belief it is less confident of. So, a court should reject a judge's finding if it is more confident that it is wrong than that the judge is a better fact finder. This analysis has implications for review of administrative fact finding and for judicial deference generally. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-07T07:28:35Z |
| format | Journal article |
| id | oxford-uuid:3953541f-473a-4a08-babf-14adef0266a1 |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-07T07:28:35Z |
| publishDate | 2022 |
| publisher | Wiley |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:3953541f-473a-4a08-babf-14adef0266a12022-12-20T08:48:35ZPlainly wrongJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:3953541f-473a-4a08-babf-14adef0266a1EnglishSymplectic ElementsWiley2022Perry, AEnglish law and wider common law jurisprudence have endorsed the condition that an appellate court should reject a trial judge's finding of fact which it believes is “plainly wrong”. Courts have not explained what makes a finding plainly wrong, however. Scholars have largely ignored the issue. This article draws on recent work in epistemology to provide a new analysis of the plainly wrong standard. Rationally, a court should not believe both (1) that a judge is a better fact finder and (2) that the judge was wrong to find some fact. If it does believe both, it should abandon the belief it is less confident of. So, a court should reject a judge's finding if it is more confident that it is wrong than that the judge is a better fact finder. This analysis has implications for review of administrative fact finding and for judicial deference generally. |
| spellingShingle | Perry, A Plainly wrong |
| title | Plainly wrong |
| title_full | Plainly wrong |
| title_fullStr | Plainly wrong |
| title_full_unstemmed | Plainly wrong |
| title_short | Plainly wrong |
| title_sort | plainly wrong |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT perrya plainlywrong |