Court System

Two court systems, side by side

Ford Motor Company once took a case to the Supreme Court of the United States without arguing that its car was safe. The whole fight was over where Ford could be sued. A 1996 Ford Explorer had crashed on a Montana road, killing its driver, and her estate sued Ford in a Montana state court. Ford had designed that Explorer in Michigan, built it in Kentucky, and first sold it in Washington; only later resales brought it to Montana. So why should a Montana court decide the case? The map you draw in the activity answers the same kind of question for your own county: which courts could hear a case there, and which one would.

The suit began in the state half of the dual court system, where a federal system and a system in every state run in parallel, each with its own trial and appellate courts. A Montana trial court refused to dismiss it, and the Montana Supreme Court agreed. The case crossed into the federal system for one reason: Ford’s argument rested on the U.S. Constitution, whose Due Process Clause limits a state court’s power over an out-of-state defendant. The U.S. Supreme Court can review a state court’s decision on a question of federal law. On a question of Florida law, the Florida Supreme Court has the last word.

Most of the disputes a business runs into are heard in state court: an unpaid invoice, a fall in a store aisle, a fight with a landlord. A federal court needs a grant of power from the Constitution and Congress. The usual grants are a claim that arises under federal law and a dispute between citizens of different states with more than $75,000 at stake. The federal judiciary’s page on court role and structure (opens in a new tab) sets out its courts from the district courts up, and the Florida Courts overview (opens in a new tab) does the same for the state courts you will map.

Does the court have power over the case, and over you

A court needs two separate powers before it can decide anything, and a mistake about either one can undo years of work. The first is subject matter jurisdiction, the power to hear this type of case. In Florida, the amount a plaintiff claims sorts a money dispute between county court and circuit court, and that line is jurisdictional. In November 1994, Milva Reina sued Fedan Corporation, also known as Fedan Tire, in a Florida circuit court. Her complaint claimed damages that “exceed $10,000.00.” At the time, circuit courts took only claims over $15,000. The defendants did not appear for the damages trial, and a jury awarded Reina $250,000.

In 1997 the Third District Court of Appeal ordered that judgment vacated. Reina’s own complaint put as little as $10,000.01 in controversy, a county court amount, so the circuit court never had power over the case. It made no difference that the final award was a circuit court amount. In Fedan Corp. v. Reina, 695 So. 2d 1282 (Fla. 3d DCA 1997) (opens in a new tab), the court held that a judgment entered without subject matter jurisdiction is void. Nobody can hand a court that power: not the parties by agreement, and not a defendant by failing to object. The dollar line has since moved to $50,000. The rule has not.

The second power is personal jurisdiction, the power over the parties themselves, whatever the case is about. That was Ford’s fight. Every company can be sued at home, and for Ford home means Delaware, where it is incorporated, and Michigan, where it has its headquarters. Anywhere else, a court needs the company’s own contacts with the state and a link between those contacts and the claim. Ford had contacts to spare: the Montana Supreme Court counted thirty-six Ford dealerships in the state, and Ford advertised, sold, and serviced Explorers there.

In 2021, in Ford Motor Co. v. Montana Eighth Judicial District Court, 592 U.S. 351 (2021) (opens in a new tab), the Court ruled against Ford without a dissent. When a company serves a market for a product in a state, and the product injures a resident there, that state’s courts can hear the suit. For a business that sells online or ships across state lines, this is the practical question: where can it be made to defend itself? One power without the other decides nothing.

Where the record is built, and where the law is checked

Inside each system, courts do two different jobs. A trial court is where a case starts and the record gets made: witnesses testify, documents come into evidence, and a judge or jury decides what happened. Reina’s jury did that work when it heard her evidence and set her damages. A finding of fact made at trial is hard to overturn later, because the judges above never see the witnesses. So the trial is where a business wins or loses most of its facts, and it is the costliest stage to get wrong.

An appellate court does narrower work. It reads the record the trial court made and asks whether the law was applied correctly, and it hears no witnesses and takes no new evidence. The Third District never asked whether Reina deserved $250,000. It read her complaint beside the jurisdiction statute and found a legal error, the kind of question an appellate court exists to answer. Its opinion also became precedent, because an appellate court’s reading of the law binds the trial courts beneath it. The next circuit judge handed a complaint like Reina’s had Fedan to follow.

Florida’s intermediate appellate courts are the six district courts of appeal, and as a general rule their decisions are the final review a case gets. Since 2021 they also hear most appeals from county court, which once went to the circuit court. Florida’s page on the district courts of appeal (opens in a new tab) shows where each one sits and which circuits it reviews. When you stack the two jobs on your map, trial courts go at the bottom and appellate courts above them, with a supreme court at the top of each system.

The exact courthouse

Jurisdiction narrows the field to the courts that could hear a case. Venue picks the one that should. Florida’s general venue statute (opens in a new tab) sends a suit to the county where the defendant lives, where the claim arose, or where the disputed property sits. Inside that county, the kind of dollar line that sank Reina’s judgment still sorts a money dispute: up to $50,000 goes to county court, and more goes to circuit court.

The federal map is drawn separately, and it does not follow the state’s lines. Florida has twenty judicial circuits and sixty-seven county courts, while the federal trial courts divide the state into three districts and each district into divisions. Polk and Highlands counties share a state circuit, the Tenth. Yet Polk County lies in the Middle District of Florida, and Highlands County in the Southern District. You cannot read one map off the other. The Florida Courts page on the circuit courts (opens in a new tab) lists each circuit’s counties and shows them on a map, and each federal district’s site lists its own divisions.

Venue is the last question on your map, because only after jurisdiction narrows the field can venue turn “a Florida circuit court” into one courthouse with an address.

Drawing your map

A finished map should answer a plain question at a glance. Suppose a business sues you tomorrow over a $30,000 debt: which court would it file in, and which court would hear the appeal? That is the test for the map you build on the activity page. The Court System Guide and the Florida Comparator lay out the structure. The Jurisdiction Scavenger Hunt then sends you to the official court websites, one question at a time, for the names. Put the trial courts at the bottom and the two supreme courts at the top, and confirm each court’s name on its own website before you draw it in. If your map answers the $30,000 question without a search, it is finished.