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Courts interpret the law, meaning that they resolve any ambiguity in statutory or regulatory language or they may determine as a threshold issue whether a statute or regulation applies to a particular factual scenario. Courts can also create law in the absence of an applicable statute. The process by which courts create law is called legal precedent, which means that courts must follow the rule set forth by previous decisions of a court of competent jurisdiction. This is known as a “common law” system.
There is a hierarchy of courts. At the federal level, the U.S. Supreme Court is the highest court in the land, followed by the Courts of Appeals (also known as Circuit Courts) and then the District Courts.
Each state has its own court system. In Pennsylvania, the highest court is the Supreme Court, the intermediate appellate courts are the Superior Court and the Commonwealth Court, and the trial courts are the Courts of Common Pleas.
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