Hi everybody! Its Andy and welcome again to my office in Los Altos, California. I'm.an attorney licensed to practice law in.California as well as New York. This.video is going to be a little bit.different, I guess. I am not going to go.over a specific, like, contract law.concept or a family law concept. Most of.my other videos do kind of take that.format. Um, this video is going to.basically go over a lesson in, um, civics.or government or social studies. Kind of.depends on what your particular school,.you know, high school, for example, called.it and the question I'm going to answer is.'How is the California state court system.organized?' Now I'm going to talk.specifically about California, but if you.don't live in California or if you live.outside the United States generally,.if you're trying to, I guess, understand.court systems in the United States, this.idea that I'm going to go over about a.three-tier system is actually very.helpful. As I'll explain, I guess, kind.of towards the end of the video, the idea.is the same kind of throughout the.United States, but, you know, each.implementation is slightly different. So.hopefully that makes sense. Go ahead and.share, comment, like, subscribe, all that.nice stuff and if you hang out with me.right now, I will actually go over how.the California courts are organized. When.we talk about the California state.courts, it's helpful to imagine it as a.system of three levels - level 1 2 & 3 - and.the levels escalate, meaning that, you.know, if your case doesn't resolve at.level 1 you might be able to appeal it.to level 2, and then if it doesn't.resolve there you might be able to.appeal it to level 3. Appeals in.California are actually very complicated..There are a lot of rules, a lot of.procedures about them. A lot of times.people will, for some reason which I.don't understand, think that they can.just appeal just because they lost. In.general, you cannot appeal just because.you are unhappy, or you lost. As you can.probably imagine no case would ever.finish if people could just keep on.appealing. So anyway, the idea, though, of a.three-level court system, if you can.understand that, that's actually.tremendously helpful because a lot of.court systems in the United States work.that same way. The federal system does. I.think with maybe one exception,.all state court systems work that way.also. So anyway all of that said then, in.California the level 1 court is called.the Superior Court and those are going.to be located in each county in.California..Excuse me, California has 58 counties so.there's 58 Superior Courts. The way that.you refer to it is going to be, you know,.Superior Court of the State of.California, County of Santa Cruz, County.of Santa Barbara, County of Los Angeles,.etc. The Superior Court in each county.has a wide, er, sorry has authority to.hear a wide variety of cases. I just put.down two of them family law and disputes.over contracts. However, you know, if.you've ever been involved in a probate.case, a personal injury case, medical.malpractice case, product def, excuse me,.product defect case, all of those can be.heard in Superior Court. There are.certain types of cases that cannot be.heard in Superior Court. Those are going.to be like, you know, bankruptcy cases,.immigration cases, stuff that is by law.specifically reserved for certain courts..Superior courts cannot hear those cases..So all of that said, a lot of you are.probably thinking that you've never been.to Superior Court before. That may not be.true if you've ever been to small claims.court, for example, to sue over, you know, a customer, let's say, who won't pay your.bill. If you've ever been to traffic.court to fight a ticket, all of that is in.the Superior Court also except the.terminology is just different, like you.know they refer to it as small claims,.but it's the small claims division of.the Superior Court. So depending on the.type of case, you might also be able to.do an appeal within the Superior Court.and that's what the the word appellate.there means. The type of case that I'm.most familiar with, you know, that gets.appealed within the Superior Court is.landlord-tenant cases. So typically, you.know, a tenant who, you know, tried to.fight their eviction and they lost and.they didn't feel, like you know, they.should have lost so they appeal and that.appeal is done within the Superior Court..In general, however, if you appeal a case.from the Superior, excuse me, from the.Superior Court,.it goes to the appellate courts or the.Courts of Appeal and so that's the level.2 courts in our three-level system..There are 58 Superior Courts as I said a.moment ago, but there are only six.appellate courts and those are in the.six California cities that I have listed.out here. Depending on which of the 58.counties you're appealing from, you will.go to one of the six appellate courts..Generally it's basically, you know, based.on geography. So if you're in Northern.California and you appeal to the level.2 courts, you're probably not going to.go to San Diego. Probably going to go to San Francisco, Sacramento, etc. So and like I.said, the level 2 appellate courts,.their job is to hear most appeals from.the Superior Courts that are not handled.by the Appellate Division of each.Superior Court. So anyway, the level 3 .court then, there's only one of those and.it's the California Supreme Court and a.lot of times people are surprised to.hear that the Supreme Court of.California is actually not in the state.capitol of Sacramento. So the California.Supreme Court is actually in San.Francisco and the Supreme Court's job is.to hear appeals from the Appellate.Courts. There are certain other duties.that the California Supreme Court has,.but the primary one, I think, is the.appellate courts, er, sorry to hear.appeals from the Appellate Courts. The.last point I want to bring up about the.California Supreme Court is that it is.the final decider, the final authority.and the final arbiter on issues of.California state law. This is probably a.little too complicated to explain, but.depending on how a case is argued and.what claims are made, the law that.governs might be federal, it might be, it.might be federal only, it might be state.only or it could be a combination of.both. If it is state only, like if it's.state law only and you appeal to the.California Supreme Court and you lose,.that's it. There is no appeal on state.law issues above the California Supreme.Court. Yeah. So sometimes people are sort.of surprised by that because sometimes.you can appeal from the California.Supreme Court to the federal system, but.sometimes not. So anyway. Moving on.then, I said, I think, a moment ago that if.you can understand the whole idea of a.three-level court system that's actually.tremendously helpful because this same.three-level system occurs in nearly all.states in the US. I think there's one.state that might actually only have two.but don't quote me on that..The one kind of caveat here, I guess, is.that even though the three-level system.might be in nearly all states, the naming.convention, the terminology is different..So to give you an example, the level 1.court in California, as we saw from the.previous slide, is called the Superior.Court. The level 1 court in the New York.system is called the Supreme Court. The.functions are the same, like, you know,.they are the trial courts of general.jurisdiction in the state system in each.state. However, the terminology is just.different which is a little confusing.for lawyers like me who are California.and New York admitted. Mainly because, you.know, the level 1 court in New York, the.Supreme Court, is the level 3 court in.California. So the terminology sometimes.can get a little confusing. And like I.said also, the federal courts have a very.similar three-level system. You might.have heard US District Court, Ninth.Circuit Court of Appeals and, of course, I.think everyone's heard of the US Supreme.Court. So a lot of stuff that I have.talked about so far may not apply to.other courts and I'm specifically.mentioning specialized courts that are.within government agencies..Those are, I mean, technically they're.called an administrative courts, so the.thing is, you know, you might have them.within the Social Security.Administration, the Department of Motor.Vehicles. You know, if you have a case.where you've applied for unemployment.benefits in California, you know, through.EDD, for example, and you, you're denied,.you have courts for that. Those courts, in.general, will not have the three-level.system that I'm talking about. However.they may have appeals, you know, possibly to courts that do have three-level.systems. So, uh, Social Security, for.example, you know they have a system.within the administration. However, you.know, if you exhaust all.those appeals, you can appeal to the.federal court system where the.three-level idea does apply. So hopefully.all of that made sense. The basic idea is.that, you know, there is a three-level.system in most court systems in the.United States and it's helpful to kind.of know that, you know, you can appeal.from one to the other, but you can't skip.over I guess is the idea. And, of course,.the naming convention in each state or.jurisdiction can sometimes be different..So hopefully all that made sense. Go.ahead and, you know, subscribe, share,.comment, like etc and I will talk to you.guys next time..Thanks..
