What is a state or U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals? In the early history of America, each Supreme Court justice traveled to a group of states to hold appeals court cases that had been referred from the district courts. While an associate Supreme Court justice may occasionally act in an appellate decision (such as a last-minute death penalty appeal), there are now too many cases for the nine justices to hear.
Cases for which federal appeals courts have jurisdiction include those involving treaties, patents, bankruptcies, issues of constitutionality (occasionally involving unusually large punitive damage awards), cases involving ambassadors, admiralty cases, habeas corpus, interstate disputes, diversity of venue situations, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), the Federal Employers Liability Act (FELA) and similar U.S. government cases. Under the U.S. Constitution the state courts handle everything else. In the federal court system the district court is the trial court. In states the trial court may have different names: the superior court, the county court, and in New York the trial court is called the “supreme” court, while the higher court is the Court of Appeals.
The Appeal
There is usually a period of time between the filing of an appeal and the court's findings—often as long as a year or more. The decision may be brief: affirmation of the trial court's decision, reversal and return of the case to the trial court to obtain more information before making its judgment (often rejecting a “summary judgment” by the trial court), or a lengthily worded opinion on the law involved in the case, with possible concurring or dissenting opinions from other appellate justices.
But what if the parties are still not satisfied with the appellate ruling? Then the matter goes to the state or U.S. Supreme Court for federal court cases, which may elect to hear the case or reject it, allowing the appellate decision to stand. Acceptance is called a writ of certiorari, implying that the higher court has accepted the case for review.
Perhaps all this explains why “litigation” should be a last resort for an insurer, and why adjusters need to make the best possible decisions early in each claim in order to avoid litigation. True, some litigation cannot be avoided, or the claim may actually begin when the insured is sued with no prior notice to the insurer – but even then there are ways to request or obtain extensions while investigation continues, or there are ways to arbitrate or mediate with the parties without the “shooting war” of a trial. Unless it is absolutely in the insurer's best interest to go to trial, a trial should be viewed as a failure on the part of the claims department to resolve matters without the court's help.
How does one know what previous appellate courts have decided? In state courts, trial court decisions are rarely published except locally, but state appellate courts may elect to publish or not publish their decisions. These are recorded in regional “reporters,” collections of court decisions that list the volume and page number, and the court making the decision. Once 999 volumes are filled, the volume sequence moves to the next number. The case is named by the appellant v. the appellee, the citation and year, i.e., Smith v. Jones, 123 So.2d 456 (Ala. App. 2nd Dist., 1992). If it is a state's Supreme Court decision, then the indicator is that the appellate designation is missing. States also record their decisions, usually with a volume number or year and the case number, i.e., (2015 Ohio 250).
Federal courts may also decide to publish or not publish the trial court's decision. For a district court decision, the indicator will be the supplemental volume, page and district: Smith v. Jones, 123 F.Supp.3d 456 (S.D. Ohio, 2001). Appellate decisions are shown by the involved Circuit Court: Smith v. Jones, 123 F.3d 456 (6th Cir., 2002). There are 12 federal appellate circuits and seven state reporting districts. Next month we will continue our look at litigation.
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