The truth is appeals are  rarely  successful and you've just spent another $10,000-$20,000 you don't really have.  

After the legal system has beat you up and treated you like a criminal for trying to protect your loved one from the profiteers,  despite that --- we tend to still be optimists and think there must be a way to make this right.  After all, we tell ourselves, the laws are designed to protect us, especially the most vulnerable of us.   Surely, the Court of Appeals will overturn  Judges who bang their gavels in favor of the vultures who enrich themselves taking advantage of the helpless.  

Unfortunately, believing the Court of Appeals can help is just another misguided level of believing the legal system is going to help you at all.   First, the appellate court gives local Judges wide discretion.  After all, the appellate judges were not in court; they did not observe the actual testimony, the manner of the witnesses, etc.  This is sensible, but it starts you out a mile behind because it assumes the Judge him/herself behaved in the proper decorum during the hearing.  It assumes all eyes should be on the witnesses and no eyes should be on the Judge.  

Second, the Judge would have to have made an procedural error for you to even have a case to file.  It can't be that he/she just made a bad or even a horrible decision, there has to be a procedural legal error involved.  Procedural errors are hard to prove because the law has many facets of interpretSettlementation.  Few laws are "shall or shall not".  The language of most laws is open ended.   

So, the bottom line is the Bank and the Lawyers can financially drain your loved one and as long as the Judge agrees, which is pretty much what most of them do, then it's A-OK as long as the Judge didn't make any procedural errors along the way.

Even if the Judge makes procedural errors, that's not light at the end of the tunnel.  The degree of a procedural error depends on the case.  If it's a murder case, well, then a Judge had better watch his p's and q's, because the legal society has proclaimed murder trials important and they  get media coverage as well.  But, if the case is of an elderly incapacitated person's exploitation by the Bank and Lawyers, then that's not that big of a deal.  After all, the Judge can and will say the fight isn't about the protected person, it's the protected person's heirs fighting over their inheritance.  Because once you're incapacitated, your money isn't yours anymore, you don't have any rights and you have little worth.  Once you're incapacitated, your money becomes "the inheritance".  The Judge will label you a troublemaker and make the case about you rather than what the Bank and Lawyers are doing to your loved one.

We filed two appeals during the horrible siege of my Grandmother and their results demonstrate what I am saying.  We had grievous procedural errors, but do you know what the Court of Appeals did?  Denied.

I learned expensive lessons.   There were statements made by the Judges  in the decision that had no basis.  For instance, the decision said I paid myself "$80 an hour for menial tasks".  Not true.  Not only was it not true, but it was never said during the hearing, my lawyer didn't say it in my appeal and the opposing lawyer didn't even say it.  So, where did this come from?  It's a mystery.  There were many such mysteries in the decision.  It makes me wonder if the Court of Appeals had the case mixed up with another case.

And another important thing to know about the Court of Appeals,  when they do someone dirty, they hide it by not publishing their decision.    They don't want it published because it could be used in the future on somebody else's appeal and they don't want that.  So, they don't publish the dirty deed they've dealt you, thank you.

They also ignored 90% of the second appeal, only addressing one issue of a multi faceted appeal.  If you could read the opinion (and you can't because they didn't publish it), it appears they just threw away everything but a page or two of the appeal and outright ignored everything else. I wonder to this day if they ever read it.  

The point I want to make to anybody who has been severely wronged by the (in)justice system is you can't count on any justice from the appellate court.  You're severely handicapped starting out because the man/woman wearing the black robes is a professional, knowing how to manipulate the system to support his/her ego and kingdom.  And the Court of Appeals are Judges, yes, on a higher level than the Judge your appealing, but still they're all Judges.  Birds of a feather.....

If you've got a lot of money, and I mean a lot of money, you might have a chance because as you appeal to a higher court each time, you might draw media attention.  And, media attention gets their attention.

But in reality, almost all  appeals are denied in favor of the Judge who has been dealing all the cards all along --- from the bottom of the deck.  It's the way it is and if you know that up front, you'll save yourself $20,000 or more. 

If you're to have a chance at all, you've got to do your appealing  to the media, not the Court of Appeals.