New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division
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The Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court is the intermediate appellate court in the U.S. state of New York. The Appellate Division hears appeals from the New York Supreme Court, which is the state's general trial court; decisions by the Appellate Division may be appealed to the state's highest court, the New York Court of Appeals. The Appellate Division is composed of four departments; the full title of the "Fourth Department," for example, is New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Fourth Department.
As intermediate appellate courts, each department develops its own jurisprudence, which can conflict with the case law of other departments (much like the separate United States Courts of Appeals can develop inconsistent case law). These conflicts can be finally resolved only by a decision on the issue by the New York Court of Appeals. While appellate departments can be persuaded by the decisions of their sister appellate departments, such decisions are not binding authority from one department to another—a decision of an appellate department is binding only on that department and the lower courts within it. An important distinction between the appellate departments and the Court of Appeals is that the appellate departments have the power to review issues of fact and issues of law of a case, while the Court of Appeals' power is limited primarily to reviewing issues of law.
New York's rules of civil procedure allow for interlocutory appeals, meaning that most trial court decisions may be appealed to the appropriate appellate department while the case is still pending in the trial court. In contrast, the federal court system prohibits interlocutory appeals in the vast majority of instances, meaning that a case must be fully concluded before any appealable issues can be raised before the appropriate federal appellate court. As a result, appellate department dockets are busy ones. Different issues in the same case may be heard on appeal time and time again before the case is even tried in the lower court.
The First Department (seated in Manhattan [New York County]) covers only The Bronx(Bronx County) and Manhattan[New York County] (known formally in the court system as Bronx and New York Counties, respectively).
The Second Department (seated in Brooklyn) oversees the supreme courts of the remaining boroughs of New York City--that is, Queens (Queens County), Brooklyn (Kings County), and Staten Island (Richmond County), as well as the remainder of Long Island (Nassau County and Suffolk County) and the New York City suburbs in 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 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.
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 until the completion of their 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.
