Standards to Review, Part 4: The Tipsy Coachman

“Drunkenness is his best virtue.”

-      All’s Well That Ends Well IV,3; Parolles concerning an acquaintance

             “The human mind is so constituted that in many instances it finds the truth when wholly unable to find the way that leads to it.” Thus spake the Georgia Supreme Court in Lee v. Porter, 63 Ga. 345, 346 (1879). In its opinion, the Court quoted a 1774 Oliver Goldsmith poem, Retaliation:

The pupil of impulse, it forc'd him along,

His conduct still right, with his argument wrong;

Still aiming at honor, yet fearing to roam,

The coachman was tipsy, the chariot drove home.

          With these words, the Georgia Supreme Court gave birth to what is now known throughout the land as the “Tipsy Coachman Doctrine.” An appellate court can affirm a trial court’s decision if it reaches the correct result for the wrong reason, as long as there is a basis for the alternate reasoning in the record.  

          Also known as the “Right for Any Reason Doctrine,” this standard of review has been recognized in Tennessee since at least 1902, when the Tennessee Supreme Court stated that it would affirm a trial court’s correct holding even when it was based upon an erroneous theory of the law. Sheafer v. Mitchell, 109 Tenn. 181, 71 S.W. 86, 87 (1902).

          In stretchy modern metaphor, you might find yourself the Appellee on a flight challenged by an Appellant who says the pilot was drunk and took the wrong flight path. Just point out to the Appellate Court that the pilot landed safely at the place printed on the ticket, and that’s what counts in appellate review.

          [For the record, I do not endorse drunkenness in aviators, stagecoach operators, or appellate practitioners. Traverse responsibly, folks.]