§ 909.Factual Determinations Contrary to Or In Addition to Those Made By Trial Court

Appellate courts normally defer to the trial court's factual findings rather than second-guessing them, but § 909 carves out an exception for cases tried without a jury, or where a jury trial right existed but was waived. In those cases, the reviewing court may make factual determinations that differ from, or supplement, what the trial court found — a significant departure from ordinary appellate deference, justified because the trial court itself wasn't acting as fact-finder in the constitutionally protected jury-trial sense.

Those determinations can rest on the evidence already before the trial court, whether or not the reviewing court takes additional evidence of its own. And the reviewing court's fact-finding power isn't frozen at the moment the trial court ruled — it may take additional evidence of facts occurring any time before the appeal is decided, then enter or direct entry of whatever judgment or order, or further order, the case requires.

The statute closes with an instruction on how to read it: liberally construed, so that appeals can be finally resolved in a single trip through the appellate process without sending the case back to the trial court for more proceedings, except where the interests of justice require a new trial on some or all of the issues. That preference for finality is what separates § 909 from an ordinary appellate record review.