What legal action involves asking a higher court to review and potentially reverse a lower court’s decision?

The legal action that involves asking a higher court to review and potentially reverse a lower court’s decision is known as an appeal. This process allows the appellant, typically the party dissatisfied with the lower court's ruling, to present their case to a higher court. The higher court examines the record of the lower court's proceedings, considers legal arguments presented by both sides, and decides whether any legal errors were made that could affect the outcome of the case.

An appeal is distinct in its focused purpose: it seeks not to retry the case but to challenge the legal reasoning and application of the law in the lower court's decision. This distinguishes it from other terms like submission, which generally refers to presenting a matter for decision without the connotation of a higher court review, or review, which could refer to various forms of examination that may not involve a higher court specifically. Reversal specifically refers to the outcome where the higher court overturns the lower court's decision, but it is not the term that describes the action of seeking that review. Thus, appeal is the correct term for this legal process.