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White Paper on Judiciary Act of 1891
The Judiciary Act of 1891 (26 Stat. 826), also known as the Evarts Act after its primary
sponsor, Senator William M. Evarts, created the United States courts of appeals, and
reassigned the jurisdiction of most routine appeals from the district and circuit courts to
these appellate courts. Because of this, it is also called the Circuit Courts of Appeals
Act.
The Act created nine new courts, originally known as the “United States circuit courts of
appeals”—the name was changed to its current form in 1948. Each court was
composed of two circuit judges and one district judge. The new courts had jurisdiction
over most appeals of lower court decisions. The Supreme Court could review legal
issues that a court of appeals certified to it, and could also review court of appeals
decisions by writ of certiorari. This change resulted in an immediate reduction in the
Supreme Court’s workload (from 623 cases filed in 1890 to 379 in 1891 and 275 in
1892). Nevertheless, Congress provided that some types of cases could be appealed
directly to the Supreme Court, bypassing the new courts of appeals.
The Act also eliminated the requirement of “circuit riding” by Supreme Court justices,
under which the justices sat as trial judges on the U.S. circuit courts. The circuit courts
themselves remained in existence, although without their former appellate jurisdiction,
until they were abolished and their trial jurisdiction transferred to the district courts in
1911.