Reminder: "New York Supreme Court" = N.Y. Trial Court; "New York Court of Appeals" = N.Y. High Court

I've been seeing some headlines referring to decisions of the New York Supreme Court (see, e.g., Fox and CNN), but that's likely to be confusing to most readers: In New York,

• "Supreme Court" refers to the trial court, though in most other states it's the name of the state highest court, and
• "Court of Appeals" refers to the highest court, though in most other states it's the name of the state intermediate court.

So when you hear that "the New York Supreme Court has struck down a law …," that just means that one trial court judge has made that decision, which would often get appealed (and perhaps reversed) within the state court system. I therefore try to use "New York trial court" or "New York high court" instead, as the case might be. (Technically, New York has some other trial courts as well, but I think "trial court" for "Supreme Court" is likely to be the least confusing option.)

Of course, you might be curious what the New York state intermediate court is called: That would be "the Appellate Division," short for "the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court."

UPDATE: Commenter captcrisis writes:

(I practice in the Appellate Division.) I get Supreme Court decisions reversed all the time. How many lawyers here can say that?

Comments

[Martinned]

This may be a deliberate choice, to translate the peculiar NY naming system without having to add an entire separate sentence to do so. I do that all the time with the Dutch Supreme Court, which has been called the "High Council of the Netherlands" since somewhere in the 15th century. Much easier to just call it the Supreme Court. (And, in doing so, ignore the four other pinnacle courts in the Netherlands.)

[DaivdBehar]

This messy naming is more evidence that the lawyer is the stupidest person in the country. A student in Life Skills learning to eat with a spoon could do a better job of naming courts. The legislature should fix this problem. Trial Court, mid level court, supreme court. While they are at it, allow the jurisdiction of appellate courts to review facts and not errors of law. Budget top investigators to review facts, and to correct the shoddy work of the lower courts. 25% of of capital cases had falsely confessed to murder and were exonerated. Your profession is ridiculous and a disgrace.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Is there another court in the Netherlands that is actually called the "Dutch Supreme Court" though?

[Martinned]

No, which is why it was admittedly a less than ideal analogy.

[Frank Drackman]

Knew that one, but I watch a lot of "Law & Order" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gP3MuUTmXNk

[Mr. Bumble]

Better to use the proper terms and spend an extra sentence to educate people.

[Eugene Volokh]

Mr. Bumble: I'm not sure that's right, especially since most Americans likely aren't going to keep track of the names for the various courts in the outliers among the 50 states. (There are other high courts that are called Courts of Appeals, for instance.)

But it's particularly inapt for headlines, which people might sometimes skim without reading the articles closely (or even at all), and which in any event are likely to be especially influential in readers' mental frames of the article. That's why, when there's a simple but clearer synonym, like "trial court" or "high court," it seems to me better for the headline to use that instead of the confusing term.

[Mr. Bumble]

Think you are describing problems with "headlines" in general which leads to much confusion and misinformation. I would prefer to see this type of thing clarified within the first setence of the story.
"In a ruling today, New York's Supreme Court (the state's second highest court)..."

[Eugene Volokh]

Just to be clear, the Supreme Court as such is basically the state's third highest court, below the Court of Appeals (high court) and the Appellate Division (intermediate appellate court). But what really matters is that it's the state's main trial court.

[Mr. Bumble]

It was only meant as an example. Maybe if the media did a better job I'd be better informed, which was the point of my initial comment.

[jdgalt1]

A list of all these outliers, if it's practical to do, would be helpful. I'm aware of two others among US states: Texas (where the Court of Criminal Appeals is the highest) and Washington (I don't recall what they call the highest court).

[Brancron]

Despite living in New York for five years (and going to law school there as well) I could never get used to this weird nomenclatorial oddity.

[Dan Schiavetta]

(I practice in the Appellate Division.) I get Supreme Court decisions reversed all the time. How many lawyers here can say that?

[Jimbo]

But how many SEC championships do you have?

[Mr. Bumble]

...but do they survive the Court of Appeals?

[Dan Schiavetta]

I've never been there, and by this time it's obvious I never will. Though I did drive by the building one night, and had my son take a pic of me holding up one of the columns.

[Mr. Bumble]

Well then, congratulations on presenting your clients cases so as to preclude an appeal.

[MatthewSlyfield]

His arguments were not appealing to the government. 🙂

[Daniel Schmutter]

This unusual nomenclature reflects the very archaic nature of the New York state court system.

New Jersey used to have a similar system. The highest law court was The Court of Errors and Appeals.

In 1947, New Jersey adopted a new constitution which substantially reorganized the court system. Among other things, the new 1947 constitution consolidated the many disparate trial courts into a simpler and more coherent system with fewer courts. The highest trial court is the Superior Court (as opposed to New York's archaic Supreme Court). Chancery practice was consolidated into the Superior Court, Chancery Division, instead of being a separate court.

New York could use a revamping. Not only does it still have archaic nomenclature, but it still has all sorts of different courts that could benefit from consolidation.

[Daniel Schmutter]

CORRECTION:

The Court of Errors and Appeals was the highest court for all purposes. It heard law appeals from the Supreme Court and Chancery appeals from the Chancellor.

[Vote for Kodos]

Technically, despite being a branch of the "Supreme Court of the State of New York," the trial court should be called the "Supreme Court, [NAME] County" when a decision is issued. So if the headlines/articles/news reports stated that, it would at least signify to the audience that the decision was from a small portion of New York. Similarly, the intermediate court in New York should be called the Supreme Court, Appellate Division, [NAME] Department.

The best clarification I received about this nomenclature was from a high ranking clerk from the Court of Appeals. They indicated that because under the New York State Constitution, the New York State Supreme Court has unlimited jurisdiction in both civil and criminal cases (with certain exceptions of monetary claims against the State of New York itself), it was Supreme in nature. Obviously, this naming mechanism is not what the lay person or even lawyer believes when taken in the context of other courts.

[CJColucci]

There are proposals in the works, with a good chance of passing, that would consolidate most if not all of the many higher-level trial courts: , e.g., Supreme Court, Family Court, Surrogate's Court, Court of Claims, into one Superior Court that will have, coincidentally, recognized divisions to handle specific matters, even if they don't have special names. (The lower-level trial courts, like the current Civil Court of the City of New York and the District Courts, will also be reorganized.)
One of the more fun aspects is that the new Superior Court judges will not all be selected the same way. Currently, for example, Supreme Court Justices are elected and Court of Claims judges are appointed by the Governor with the advice and consent of the Senate. Once all these people become Superior Court judges, their successors will be selected whichever way the original judges who became Superior Court judges were, so a former Supreme Court Justice will be replaced by election and a former Court of Claims judge will be appointed by the Governor with the advice and consent of the Senate.
I had suggested this very procedure over decade ago, because I thought disagreement over the judicial selection process would otherwise kill these useful organizational reforms.