The United States District Court

United States district court

The United States district courts are the general trial courts of the United States federal court system. Both civil and criminal cases are filed in the district court, which is a court of law, equity, and admiralty. There is a United States bankruptcy court associated with each United States...

 for the Central District of California (in case citation

Case citation

Case citation is the system used in many countries to identify the decisions in past court cases, either in special series of books called reporters or law reports, or in a 'neutral' form which will identify a decision wherever it was reported...

s, C.D. Cal.; commonly referred to as the CDCA or CACD) serves over 18 million people in southern and central California, making it the largest federal judicial district by population. The Central District was created on September 18, 1966.

Cases from the Central District are appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is a U.S. federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts:* District of Alaska* District of Arizona...

 (except for patent

Patent

A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....

 claims and claims against the United States government under the Tucker Act

Tucker Act

Through the Tucker Act , the United States government has waived its sovereign immunity with respect to certain lawsuits....

, which are appealed to the Federal Circuit

United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit

-Vacancies and pending nominations:-List of former judges:-Chief judges:Notwithstanding the foregoing, when the court was initially created, Congress had to resolve which chief judge of the predecessor courts would become the first chief judge...

).
California was admitted as a state on September 9, 1850, and was initially divided into two districts, the Northern

United States District Court for the Northern District of California

The United States District Court for the Northern District of California is the federal United States district court whose jurisdiction comprises following counties of California: Alameda, Contra Costa, Del Norte, Humboldt, Lake, Marin, Mendocino, Monterey, Napa, San Benito, San Francisco, San...

 and the Southern

United States District Court for the Southern District of California

The United States District Court for the Southern District of California is the federal district court whose jurisdiction comprises the following counties in California: Imperial and San Diego. In terms of filed indictments, it is one of the busiest criminal districts in the United States...

, by Act of Congress approved September 28, 1850, 9 Stat.