Definition
The United States Courts of Appeals — commonly called circuit courts of appeals — are the intermediate federal appellate courts sitting between the federal district courts and the Supreme Court of the United States. They review decisions of the federal district courts (and, in certain matters, federal administrative agencies) within their geographic circuits.
The modern system consists of thirteen courts: eleven numbered circuits covering geographic regions of the country, the District of Columbia Circuit, and the Federal Circuit (which has nationwide subject-matter jurisdiction rather than geographic jurisdiction, handling patent, international trade, federal claims, and related matters).
Each court sits in panels, typically of three judges, drawn from the active judges of the circuit. En banc review — by the full active membership of the court — is available in limited circumstances for cases of exceptional importance or where panel decisions conflict.
The term "circuit courts of appeals" as used in older legal materials refers specifically to the courts created by the Evarts Act of 1891, which established a dedicated appellate tier and resolved a long-standing structural problem in the federal judiciary. Before 1891, appellate review in the federal system was fragmented, and Supreme Court justices were required to ride circuit — traveling to preside over lower court proceedings — a practice that created delays and conflicts. The 1891 Act created permanent appellate courts staffed by their own judges, though the older circuit courts (distinct bodies with both original and appellate jurisdiction) continued alongside them until abolished in 1911. Researchers must be attentive to this overlap: from 1891 to 1911, "circuit court" and "circuit court of appeals" referred to two entirely different federal courts.
Following the Judicial Code of 1948, the courts were officially redesignated "United States Courts of Appeals," the name they carry today. The phrase "circuit courts of appeals" persists widely in informal usage and in older case law and treatises.
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Common Confusion
Three distinct federal bodies share the word "circuit" in their historical names, and conflating them is among the most common errors in reading pre-1912 federal legal materials.
The original circuit courts (established 1789) were trial-level courts with some appellate jurisdiction over district court decisions. They were not dedicated appellate bodies and were staffed in part by Supreme Court justices riding circuit.
The circuit courts of appeals (established 1891) were the new intermediate appellate courts created by the Evarts Act. They existed alongside the old circuit courts for twenty years.
The circuit courts (original) were abolished in 1911, leaving the circuit courts of appeals as the sole "circuit" courts. After 1948, these became the United States Courts of Appeals.
A researcher reading an 1895 federal opinion must determine which court issued it. An opinion from the "Circuit Court" and an opinion from the "Circuit Court of Appeals" issued in the same year, in the same circuit, are from two structurally different courts with different roles.
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Why It Matters in Research
The single most important research trap in this area is the 1891–1911 period. During those two decades, both the old circuit courts and the new circuit courts of appeals were operating simultaneously. Citating or summarizing a case requires identifying which body actually decided it. Headnotes, syllabi, and secondary sources from this period are not always careful about the distinction.
The 1948 redesignation matters for citation practice. Older briefs, treatises, and opinions cite "the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit" where modern practice uses "the Ninth Circuit" or "the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit." Law Mind corpus materials span this boundary, and researchers should not assume a uniform naming convention across sources.
Jurisdictional scope has shifted materially over time. The Evarts Act created the circuit courts of appeals with appellate jurisdiction over circuit and district courts, but with significant exceptions — certain classes of cases went directly to the Supreme Court. Those mandatory direct-appeal pathways narrowed dramatically over the twentieth century as Congress granted the Supreme Court increasing discretionary control over its docket. The 1988 Act largely eliminated mandatory Supreme Court jurisdiction, making the courts of appeals the effective courts of last resort in the vast majority of federal cases.
Subject-matter jurisdiction also varies by circuit in ways that affect research strategy. The Federal Circuit's nationwide patent jurisdiction means that patent appeals from any district court go to that court, not to the regional circuit — a structural fact that affects how patent precedent develops and where relevant appellate authority is found.
For tax research specifically, decisions of the United States Tax Court are appealable to the regional circuit court of appeals for the taxpayer's residence or principal place of business — not uniformly to a single appellate court. This means Tax Court decisions on identical legal questions can generate conflicting appellate precedents across circuits, and the governing circuit for any given taxpayer's dispute must be identified before circuit-level authority can be assessed. See tax_178 for full treatment.
Military criminal appeals follow an entirely separate appellate structure through the service courts of criminal appeals and the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces (CAAF), bypassing the regional circuit courts of appeals entirely. See military_7.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Both editions of Black's Law Dictionary define circuit courts of appeals by reference to the Evarts Act of 1891, describing a system of courts composed of the circuit justice (the Supreme Court justice assigned to the circuit), the circuit judge, and an additional circuit judge appointed for each court. Both editions correctly characterize the jurisdiction as appellate from the circuit and district courts, with exceptions for specified classes of cases.
The first edition references the act of March 3, 1891. The second edition corrects this to March 8, 1891, and adds a statutory citation to U.S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 488.
Neither edition addresses the post-1911 abolition of the old circuit courts, the 1948 redesignation, the subsequent expansion of circuits, or the creation of the Federal Circuit in 1982. Researchers relying solely on these historical definitions will have an accurate picture of the courts as they existed at the close of the nineteenth century but will miss the full arc of structural development. The historical definitions are useful for fixing meaning in contemporaneous documents but should not be read as descriptions of the modern federal appellate system.
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Jurisdictional Note
While all regional circuits apply federal law, circuit splits — genuine disagreements on legal questions among the circuits — are a persistent feature of the federal appellate system. For any federal legal question, the controlling authority is the precedent of the circuit in which the case arises, not a national consensus. Identifying which circuit governs a dispute, and whether that circuit has addressed the question, is a foundational research step.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Tax Court Appeals to Circuit Courts — The Law Mind Tax Encyclopedia (tax_178)
Military Appeals — Service Courts of Criminal Appeals, CAAF, and Supreme Court Review — The Law Mind Military, Veterans & Admiralty Law Encyclopedia (military_7)
Penalty Appeals IRS and Tax Court — The Law Mind Tax Encyclopedia (tax_155)
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