Tipsy Coachman

It is an established rule of law that an order of a trial judge will be sustained on appeal if it is correct, even though the correct ruling is based on a differrent reason that the reason given by the trial judge. See ''Miami Beach First Nat. Bank v. Borbiro'', 201 So.2d 571, 572 (Fla. 3d DCA 1967). A shorter way of explaing the law is that the trial judges ruling will be upheld even if it is 'right for the wrong reason.'

This doctrine has come to be known as the tipsy coachman doctrine, based on the allegory that a tipsy coachman may still arrive at the proper destination.

The Florida Supreme Court explained the doctrine in a 2002 appeal from a second-degree murder conviction:


 * “We start with the proposition that generally, if a claim is not raised in the trial court, it will not be considered on appeal. However, notwithstanding this principle, in some circumstances, even though a trial court's ruling is based on improper reasoning, the ruling will be upheld if there is any theory or principle of law in the record which would support the ruling. This longstanding principle of appellate law, sometimes referred to as the ‘tipsy coachman’ doctrine, allows an appellate court to affirm a trial court that reaches the right result but for the wrong reasons so long as there is any basis which would support the judgment in the record." Robertson v. State, 829 So.2d 901, 906 (Fla. 2002) (internal citations omitted).

The term was first used in a 19th century Georgia case, Lee v. Porter, 63 Ga 345, 346 (1879), in which the Supreme Court of Georgia, noting that 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," quoted from Oliver Goldsmith's Retaliation: A Poem written in 1774:


 * Here, waiter, more wine, let me sit while I'm able,
 * 'Till all my companions sink under the table;
 * Then, with chaos and blunders encircling my head,
 * Let me ponder, and tell what I think of the dead.


 * Here lies honest William, whose heart was a mint,
 * While the owner ne'er knew half the good that was in't;
 * The pupil of impulse, it forced him along,
 * His conduct still right, with his argument wrong;
 * Still aiming at honour, yet fearing to roam,
 * The coachman was tipsy, the chariot drove home;
 * Would you ask for his merits, alas! he had none,
 * What was good was spontaneous, his faults were his own.

An exhaustive article addressing the applicability of the principle can be found in The Florida Bar Journal at: http://www.floridabar.org/DIVCOM/JN/JNJournal01.nsf/c0d731e03de9828d852574580042ae7a/31a5fce82d401c5e8525739f004c7f9e?OpenDocument

In yet another article in The Florida Bar Journal the efficacy of the principle is questioned at: http://www.floridabar.org/DIVCOM/JN/JNJournal01.nsf/c0d731e03de9828d852574580042ae7a/c0109640122fbcde852573050052d2ed?OpenDocument