New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division

The courthouse of the First Department of the Appellate Division in Manhattan, New York City (see here)

The New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division is the intermediate appellate court in New York State. The Appellate Division is composed of four departments (the full title of the "Fourth Department," for example, is Supreme Court of the State of New York, Appellate Division, Fourth Department).

• The First Department (seated in Manhattan) covers the Bronx (Bronx County) and Manhattan (New York County).
• The Second Department (seated in Brooklyn) covers Queens (Queens County), Brooklyn (Kings County), Staten Island (Richmond County), (Nassau County, Suffolk County), Dutchess, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, and Westchester Counties.
• The Third Department (seated in Albany) includes an area extending from the territory of the Second Department north to New York's borders with Vermont and Quebec, and includes the cities of Albany, Troy, Schenectady, Saratoga Springs, and Binghamton. This territory extends nearly as far west as Syracuse.
• The Fourth Department (seated in Rochester) covers the remainder of the state (west of the Third Department's territory), and includes the cities of Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse.

History

The Appellate Division was created by the New York State Constitution of 1894 to succeed the General Term of the Supreme Court, effective January 1, 1896.

Jurisdiction

The Appellate Division hears appeals from the New York Supreme Court, which is the state's general trial court.

New York's rules of civil procedure allow for interlocutory appeals of right from nearly every order and decision of the trial court, meaning that most may be appealed to the appropriate appellate department while the case is still pending in the trial court.

The Appellate Division may make decisions of law and fact with respect to its power to hear first appeals from state trial courts, including the Supreme Court and County Courts. These trial level courts exercise specific jurisdiction as conferred by law. In contrast, both the New York Court of Appeals and the Appellate Division when it sits as a final appeals court with respect to appeals arising from decisions of the Appellate Terms in the First and Second Departments, generally may only decide questions of law. Appellate Divisions may adjudicate facts subject to specific constraints in the course of initial review of agency decisions under New York's CPLR Article 78, which provides for limited court review or agency and corporate decisions.

When a particular department rules on a given issue, that ruling is generally binding on all the courts below and generally in every department. The First and Second Departments have issued case law indicating that trial courts within their respective jurisdictions should follow the decisions of the other departments if the First or Second Department, respectively, have not ruled on a particular issue. If two different departments have made different rulings on the same issue, then the lower courts in each departmental area must follow the ruling made by the higher court for their particular department. This can sometimes result in the same law being applied differently in different departments. When this occurs, the highest court in the state, the Court of Appeals, can remedy the situation by hearing the case and issuing a single ruling, which is then binding on every court in the state. See Mountain View Coach Lines v. Storms, 102 A.D.2d 663, 476 N.Y.S.2d 918 (2d Dept. 1984).

Appeals from the Appellate Division

Decisions by the Appellate Division may be appealed to the state's highest court, the New York Court of Appeals.

Appointment of Justices

Justices of the Appellate Division are chosen by the Governor from among those elected to the State Supreme Court. A justice does not have to have been elected from one of the judicial districts within a Department to be appointed to the Appellate Division for that Department. They serve at least 5 years, or until the completion of their 14-year elected terms, or reaching the constitutional age limit of 70, beyond which the governor may choose to reappoint them for up to three two-year terms.

Rules

While most states have a unified set of appellate rules modeled on or at least inspired by the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure, each department of the Appellate Division has its own sui generis set of rules; there is no set of appellate rules shared by all departments.

Case Management

To keep caseloads under control, most Appellate Division opinions are extremely concise. Often, an Appellate Division panel will dispose of an entire case in only two paragraphs, with the second paragraph stating: "We have considered plaintiff's (or defendant's) remaining contentions and find them unavailing." In contrast, courts in most other states traditionally devote a few more paragraphs to disposing of the other "remaining contentions."

Admission of Attorneys

The Appellate Division has several other unique features. New York attorneys are admitted in an Appellate Division department rather than by the Court of Appeals, while in practically all other states, attorney admissions are officially conducted by the state's highest court (upon the recommendation of the state bar association or a special admissions office or committee). New York complicates things further by requiring that applicants must be interviewed in person after passing the bar exam. All nonresident applicants are admitted through the Third Department in Albany, which is convenient only for attorneys coming from lightly populated southern Vermont and western Massachusetts, rather than the First or Second Departments, which would be more convenient for attorneys in heavily populated regions of Connecticut, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania adjacent to New York City.

See also

• Appellate Division Courthouse of New York State

References

Notes