Definition
A court of appeals is an appellate tribunal — a court whose primary function is to review decisions made by lower courts or administrative bodies, rather than to conduct original trials. The term describes a category of court, not a single institution, and its precise meaning depends heavily on the jurisdiction and time period.
In the modern federal system, the United States Courts of Appeals (also called circuit courts) are the intermediate appellate courts sitting between the federal district courts and the Supreme Court of the United States. There are thirteen federal circuits. These courts review questions of law, not raw factual disputes, and their decisions bind all lower federal courts within their circuit.
At the state level, "court of appeals" refers to different tiers of authority depending on the state. In most states it denotes an intermediate appellate court — one step above the trial court but below the state's highest court. In a handful of states, it is the court of last resort.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): An appellate court.
Historical common usage: The term has no distinct entry in Webster's 1913 apart from its legal sense; it was understood as a court hearing appeals.
The gap worth noting: In ordinary speech, "court of appeals" is often used loosely to mean any court that hears an appeal. In legal research, the phrase carries structural weight — it identifies a court's position in the judicial hierarchy, which is not uniform across jurisdictions. Assuming "court of appeals" always means the same tier of court, or always means the highest court, is a research error.
Common Confusion
The most persistent confusion is treating "court of appeals" as synonymous with "highest court." In New York, the Court of Appeals is the court of last resort — the equivalent of another state's supreme court. In most other states and in the federal system, the court of appeals is an intermediate body, not the final word. A researcher reading a New York Court of Appeals decision and a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision is reading from courts at entirely different rungs of their respective ladders.
A secondary confusion arises between the federal Courts of Appeals and the old federal Circuit Courts, which existed prior to 1911 and were trial-level courts despite their name. The modern Courts of Appeals should not be conflated with that earlier system.
Why It Matters in Research
Hierarchy determines weight. A decision from a court of appeals is binding on lower courts within its jurisdiction but is not necessarily the final word. Knowing where a court of appeals sits in its jurisdiction's hierarchy tells you whether further appeal was possible, and whether a subsequent higher-court decision may have superseded the one you are reading.
Historical sources require extra care. The Law Mind corpus includes materials spanning well over a century, during which the names and functions of appellate courts shifted significantly. The court of last resort in New York has been the Court of Appeals since 1846 — researchers accustomed to other states may not recognize it as such. Virginia's highest court is still called the Supreme Court of Appeals, a name that appears in historical sources and can mislead a researcher expecting "Supreme Court."
Jurisdiction-shopping traps. Because the term maps onto different tiers in different states, a case described only as a "court of appeals decision" in a secondary source requires verification of which jurisdiction and which tier is meant before any weight can be assigned.
Federal circuit geography matters. In federal research, the circuit a court of appeals sits in affects the precedential value of its decisions for your jurisdiction. A Seventh Circuit decision on a question of federal law is not binding in the Fifth Circuit. Law Mind materials referencing circuit courts require identification of which circuit.
Specialized appellate courts. Some specialized federal courts have appellate jurisdiction that does not run through the standard circuit structure. The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit handles patent appeals and certain claims against the federal government. Military appellate review flows through the Courts of Criminal Appeals and then the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces — a wholly separate track addressed in the Military encyclopedia entry.
Historical Dictionary Support
All three historical dictionary sources agree on the structural point: "court of appeals" is an appellate tribunal, but its rank varies by jurisdiction. Black's first and second editions and Bouvier's are essentially aligned, with minor updates between editions reflecting changes in state court organization. The second edition of Black's adds the District of Columbia to the list of jurisdictions where the court of appeals is the court of last resort — a detail the first edition omits.
Bouvier's is somewhat more complete in cataloguing intermediate appellate court states, noting Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Pennsylvania, and the United States as jurisdictions with intermediate appellate courts called "court of appeals" or "appellate court." This breadth is useful for historical research spanning multiple states.
What the historical sources do not address: the modern federal circuit structure as it exists today. The current thirteen-circuit system (including the Federal Circuit, created in 1982) postdates these dictionaries entirely. Researchers using these sources for background on pre-twentieth-century appellate practice will find them adequate; researchers trying to understand modern federal appellate structure will need to go beyond them.
Jurisdictional Note
In New York, Maryland, and the District of Columbia, the court of appeals is or historically was the court of last resort. In the federal system and most states, it is an intermediate court. Texas maintains a Court of Appeals as an intermediate court, with the Supreme Court of Texas (for civil matters) and the Court of Criminal Appeals (for criminal matters) sitting above it. Virginia's Supreme Court of Appeals retains that historical name as the state's highest court.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Tax Court Appeals to Circuit Courts (The Law Mind Tax Encyclopedia) — covers how Tax Court decisions move through the federal Courts of Appeals.
Military Appeals — Service Courts of Criminal Appeals, CAAF, and Supreme Court Review (The Law Mind Military, Veterans & Admiralty Law Encyclopedia) — covers the parallel military appellate structure, which operates outside the standard circuit system.