Reverse

When an appellate court finds a legal error in a prior court’s decision it will nullify the result.

In contrast, when an appellate court agrees with  a lower court’s decision it “affirms” the lower court’s decision.

Sample sentence:

1. Because the trial court judge committed a procedural error we reverse the court’s decision dismissing the complaint.

2. We decline to reverse the trial court’s decision as we see no error and affirm the decision in its entirety.