In a Sept. 12 article and again in a Sept. 19 story, both reporting on the results of a St. Albans eminent domain court case, the Bangor Daily News reported that the landowner’s appeal to the Maine Supreme Court “had been denied.” Coincidentally, on Sept. 19, we published a letter to the editor, authored by retired Maine Supreme Court Justice Paul Rudman of Veazie. In his letter, Justice Rudman took the BDN to task for mischaracterizing the court’s action as the “denial” of an appeal.

The BDN regrets any inaccuracy in referring to the action of affirming a lower court’s decision as the “denial of an appeal.” However, it is commonly understood that the Maine Supreme Court can “vacate” the lower court, and thereby grant the appeal (rule in favor of the appealing party), or “affirm” the lower court decision, and thereby deny an appeal. In fact, at the end of its decisions that uphold a lower court decision, the court sometimes characterizes its action as, “appeal denied.”

In reporting on this and similar cases, newspapers conduct a balancing act between being technically accurate and using language that can be easily understood by their nonattorney readers.