The appeal result that is most rare, and most pleasing to the appealing side (appellant), is reversal. When a judgment is reversed, the judgment appealed is gone. The appellant has won the appeal. When the appellate court grants reversal, it has granted relief.
Reversal is the opposite of affirmance. An affirmed judgment stands as it was before it was appealed. When a judgment is affirmed, the appellant has lost the appeal.
A judgment can be completely or partly reversed. A judgment that is completely reversed is simply called reversed. An appellate court may write that the judgment is affirmed in part and reversed in part. If so, the appellate decision will show which part is reversed and which part is affirmed. For example, the appellate court might reverse a decision about child custody and affirm the trial court's division of marital property.
Affirmance or reversal of a judgment is not necessarily the end of the case. Other questions that the appellate court cannot answer may arise as a result of the affirmance or reversal. Those questions are usually answered by the trial court or the court from which the appeal was taken. Thus a case may be "affirmed and remanded" or "reversed and remanded." Sometimes the nature of the case allows the appellate court to be very specific about what to do on remand. An example is a remand for a new trial. The opposite extreme is a remand for further proceedings not inconsistent with the appellate decision. That type of remand tells the trial court what cannot be done, but isn't much of a limit on what can be done.
Every appellant's brief has a Conclusion. The Conclusion includes the appellant's prayer for relief. The prayer for relief is where the appellant tells the appellate court what the appellant wants the court to do. The conclusion might request reversal, or reversal and remandment, or reversal and remandment for a new trial or hearing, for example, and might request alternative relief in order of preference.
Some appeals cannot lead to reversal. An example is a criminal case in which the evidence of guilt was sufficient to convict but the trial was not fair. In such a case, reversal will not occur and might not be requested. In such a case a new trial is the best that can be hoped for.
