The federal court system
This post is a quick overview of the federal court system in the United States. This is part of the series on US law for foreign legal researchers and lawyers that I’m posting to this site every Tuesday. I’ll be drawing from IP and IT law examples when possible.
The various federal courts
Because of federalism, there is essentially a dual court system — one set of federal courts, and a set of state courts in the United States. The state courts are different between states and their organisation and arrangement is largely a matter of state law (within the confines of applicable Federal law).
The Supreme Court of the United States - This is the nation’s highest court and consists of eight Associate Justices and one Chief Justice.
The US Courts of Appeal - These courts have appellate jursidiction. The Appeals courts are divided into different circuits. There are 11 circuits divided up to cover the 50 US States and a DC Circuit for Washington, D.C. In addition, there are specialised courts, including the Federal Circuit, which among other duties handles appeals on patent matters.
The District Courts - These are the trial courts within the Federal court system.
Circuit map of the United States
The flow of cases within the system
Broadly speaking, cases reach the Supreme Court in one of two ways:
- Via appeal (on an appropriate issue) from the highest court in an individual state.
- Via appeal from one of the federal circuit courts.
Federal cases reach one of the individual circuit courts of appeal from district courts within their geographical region, as shown on the above map. Thus a case tried in a federal district court in Austin, Texas would get appealed to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. From there it gets appealed to the Supreme Court.
One exception is the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Its appellate jurisdiction is based on subject matter, and it hears a wide variety of appeals. Most importantly for IP and IT researchers, it hears appeals on patent cases when patent infringement is brought up by the claimant of a suit. This means that counterclaims, claims brought by a defendant, can still result in patent cases being brought before the various circuit courts of appeal.
Precedent and Circuits
As you can see from the above, cases do not flow from one Circuit Court of Appeals to another. Cases decided by the 5th Circuit, for example, only progress to the Supreme Court (if at all), not to another Circuit Court of Appeals.
But what happens if two different circuits address the same legal issue? How does this factor in to the role of precedent in common law systems?
The answer is that the decisions of one circuit are only persuasive to another circuit. One circuit is not bound to follow the interpretation of the law in a case decided by another circuit. Circuit courts are only obliged to follow US law (such as statutes), Supreme Court decisions, and precedential caselaw within their own circuit. This fact may result in a ‘circuit split’, whereby the law on a particular issue is different in one circuit than in another. The split can even be on how to interpret a previous Supreme Court case on an issue.
Cases decided by a circuit court of appeals do of course serve as precedent to the lower courts — the district courts — within that circuit.
Splits are not just true between the various Circuit Court of Appeals, but can be true between the states. One state can decide one way on an issue of US federal or Constitutional law, and another state a completely different way. Until there is some resolution of the issue by the Supreme Court or Congress, the split may remain.
The Supreme Court generally takes cases not on the basis of correcting a wrong interpretation of law in a specific case but rather takes cases in an effort to resolve splits between circuits or state courts.
You may wish to read the following copyright cases in which two different circuits came to different conclusions about the same matter:
- Mirage Editions, Inc. v. Albuquerque A.R.T. Co., 856 F.2d 1341 (9th Cir. 1988).
- Lee v. A.R.T. Co., 125 F.3d 580 (7th Cir. 1997).
