California Court of Appeal

The California Court of Appeal is the intermediate appellate court in California. In the hierarchy of courts, the Court of Appeal is above the Trial Court and below the California Supreme Court. Both the Court of Appeal and California Supreme Court write decisions on some of the cases it decides. Some of the written decisions contain an analysis of the law related to a particular case which may consist of statutes and caselaw from other decisions of appellate courts.

The respective court decides that some of its written decisions should be published in law books called reporters so that lawyers and judges may use them as legal principles which may be applied to cases which present particular facts. The writen decisions of the courts which have been published have binding (precendential) effect on other cases which are similar. The binding or precential effect of the decisions of appellate courts is called stare decisis.