De Novo Judicial Review

De Novo: New. Judicial review refers to a court taking a look at something. The most famous version revolves around what the Supreme Court does. In your high school history class, you probably learned about Marbury vs. Madison, John Marshall and the gang...the case that established that the Supreme Court has the power to strike down unconstitutional laws...otherwise known as judicial review, which is very different from the stage play sung buy lawyers called The Judicial Revue.

If this is the big papa form of judicial review, there are other baby versions. In this case, we’re talking about an appeals court reviewing a lower court’s ruling. If one of the parties to a lawsuit thinks they got a raw deal in a court’s decision, they can appeal the decision. Special courts consider these appeals...cleverly called appellate courts.

When an appellate court looks at a lower court's decision, there's a question regarding the weight they should give the original ruling. Basically, the court has to consider what to do in the case of an intellectual "tie." It's similar to a burden of proof. How much should the higher court respect the lower court ruling?

In a De Novo review, the higher court looks at the ruling completely new. It ignores what the lower court's ruling said and it looks at the facts as if it were ruling for the first time. It comes up in finance in issues related to pension plans or in situations where an arbitration ruling has come under scrutiny.