Court Case Types: Civil, Criminal, Probate, and Bankruptcy

The U.S. legal system sorts disputes into a handful of case types, and each one carries its own rules, court, and possible outcomes. The main types of court cases are criminal, civil, family, probate, bankruptcy, administrative, and small claims. The broadest split is between criminal cases, where the government prosecutes someone for violating a public law, and civil cases, where private parties fight over money or conduct. The rest are specialized tracks that handle domestic disputes, estates, insolvency, agency decisions, and low-dollar claims under their own procedures.

Criminal Cases

A criminal case starts when a government prosecutor charges a person or business with breaking a law that protects the public. Because the government is bringing its full weight against an individual, criminal defendants get the strongest procedural protections in the system. The Sixth Amendment guarantees the right to an attorney, and if you cannot afford one, the court must appoint one at no cost.¹ The prosecution must prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, the most demanding standard of proof in the law. Any reasonable doubt, and the jury must acquit.

Federal law splits criminal offenses into three tiers by severity: infractions, misdemeanors, and felonies. Each tier is broken further into lettered classes that set the ceiling on prison time and fines.² States use similar grading, with their own specifics.

Infractions

Infractions are the least serious offenses: traffic tickets, jaywalking, minor local-ordinance violations. Federal infractions carry no more than five days of imprisonment, though most result in a fine rather than jail.³ Federal fines for infractions cap at $5,000.⁴

Misdemeanors

Misdemeanors sit above infractions and below felonies. Petty theft, simple assault, and first-offense DUI are typical examples. The federal system recognizes three classes:

Class A: up to one year in jail and a fine of up to $100,000.
Class B: up to six months in jail and a fine of up to $5,000.
Class C: up to thirty days in jail and a fine of up to $5,000.

Those maximums come from the federal sentencing and fine statutes.³⁴ State misdemeanor structures track this general shape but differ in the specifics.

Felonies

Felonies are the most serious charges: robbery, drug trafficking, fraud, homicide. Federal felony classes run from Class E (up to three years) through Class A (up to life or death for the most severe offenses).² Fines for individuals convicted of a federal felony can reach $250,000, and when the crime produced financial gain or loss, the court can impose up to twice that amount.⁴

The prison sentence is not the whole picture. Federal law requires courts to order restitution to victims in many felony cases, covering property damage, medical expenses, and lost income.⁵ A felony conviction also triggers a federal ban on possessing firearms, which reaches anyone convicted of a crime punishable by more than one year of imprisonment.⁶ Depending on the state, a felony can also cost you voting rights, professional licenses, or eligibility for certain public benefits.

Civil Cases

Civil litigation covers disputes between private parties where one side claims the other’s actions caused harm or financial loss. The plaintiff (the person filing the lawsuit) carries the burden of proof, but the standard is much lower than in criminal cases. A civil plaintiff has to show that their version of events is more likely true than not, a standard known as preponderance of the evidence. No one goes to prison over a civil case. The point is to make the injured party financially whole or to get a court order requiring someone to do (or stop doing) something specific.

Tort Claims

Tort cases are a large share of civil filings. They involve personal injury, negligence, medical malpractice, product liability, and similar claims where someone’s carelessness or intentional conduct caused harm. If a driver runs a red light and sends you to the hospital with $50,000 in medical bills, you file a tort claim to recover those costs plus lost wages and compensation for pain.

Contract and Property Disputes

When someone fails to hold up their end of a written or oral agreement, the other party can sue for breach of contract. These cases seek to enforce the deal’s original terms or recover the financial loss caused by the breach. Property disputes follow a similar path and often involve boundary disagreements, landlord-tenant conflicts, or competing ownership claims. Courts can award money damages, order a party to perform the promised action, or issue an injunction blocking harmful conduct.

Class Actions

When a large group of people suffers the same type of harm from the same defendant, individual lawsuits are impractical. A class action lets one or a few plaintiffs represent the whole group. Federal courts require the proposed class to meet four conditions before certification: the group must be large enough that adding everyone individually would be unworkable, there must be legal or factual questions common to the class, the lead plaintiffs’ claims must be typical of the group’s claims, and the lead plaintiffs must be able to fairly represent everyone’s interests.⁷ Federal class actions also require the total amount at stake to exceed $5 million.⁸

Not All Settlement Money Is Tax-Free

One detail catches many plaintiffs off guard. Federal law excludes from income any damages you receive for personal physical injuries or physical sickness, whether paid as a lump sum or in installments.⁹ Settlements for non-physical harm are different. Damages for emotional distress, defamation, employment discrimination, and back pay are generally taxable as income.¹⁰ Punitive damages are almost always taxable regardless of the underlying claim. If your case mixes physical and non-physical injuries, insist that the settlement agreement allocate the amounts clearly, because the IRS will scrutinize how the money was characterized.

Family Law Cases

Family law handles disputes tied to domestic relationships: divorce, child custody, child support, adoption, and legal separation. These cases are private in nature but get specialized judicial oversight because of the stakes, particularly where children’s welfare is involved. Most jurisdictions route family matters to dedicated courts or divisions staffed by judges experienced in domestic disputes.

A divorce begins when one spouse files a petition for dissolution of marriage. The case then typically addresses three questions: how to divide marital property and debts, whether either spouse is entitled to spousal support, and, when there are children, who gets custody and how much child support the non-custodial parent will pay. Most states calculate child support using statutory guidelines that factor in both parents’ income and the number of children. Many courts require mediation before trial to help parents reach agreements on parenting plans and visitation, which tends to produce better outcomes than terms imposed by a judge.

Family law also covers prenuptial and postnuptial agreements and adoption petitions, whether the adoption involves a stepparent, a relative, or an agency placement.

Probate and Estate Cases

When someone dies, their assets need to be gathered, debts paid, and the rest distributed to the right people. Probate is the court-supervised process that makes this happen. If the deceased left a will, the court validates the document to confirm it was properly signed and witnessed, then appoints an executor (sometimes called a personal representative) to carry out the will’s instructions, pay outstanding debts and taxes, and distribute what remains to the beneficiaries.

If someone dies without a will, the estate passes through intestate succession. State law dictates the order of priority: surviving spouses and children typically inherit first, followed by parents, siblings, and more distant relatives. If no qualifying relative exists, the assets go to the state. The court still appoints an administrator, but distribution follows a statutory formula rather than the deceased person’s wishes.

Small Estate Alternatives

Not every estate needs full probate. Most states offer a simplified process for smaller estates, commonly called a small estate affidavit, which lets heirs claim assets by filing a sworn statement rather than opening a formal probate case. The dollar threshold varies significantly by state. These simplified procedures typically cannot transfer real estate and require a waiting period after the death before the affidavit can be used.

Guardianship and Conservatorship

Probate courts also handle guardianship and conservatorship cases for people who can no longer manage their own affairs due to age, illness, or disability. A family member or other interested person files a petition asking the court to appoint someone to make decisions on the incapacitated person’s behalf. A guardian handles personal and medical decisions; a conservator manages finances. Courts monitor these appointments closely to prevent financial abuse, often requiring regular accountings and status reports.

Trusts as an Alternative

A revocable living trust lets someone transfer assets to a trust during their lifetime, with the trust’s terms dictating how those assets are distributed after death. Because the trust already owns the assets, they pass directly to beneficiaries without going through probate court. The catch: any asset not properly retitled into the trust’s name will still have to go through probate, which is the most common planning mistake people make with trusts.

Bankruptcy Cases

Bankruptcy is a federal court proceeding that gives individuals and businesses a legal path to deal with debts they cannot pay. Filing triggers an automatic stay that immediately stops most collection efforts, including lawsuits, wage garnishments, and foreclosure proceedings. Two chapters are common for individuals, and they work very differently.

Chapter 7 is a liquidation process. A court-appointed trustee collects the debtor’s non-exempt assets, sells them, and distributes the proceeds to creditors. In exchange, most remaining debts are discharged. In practice, many Chapter 7 cases are “no-asset” cases where the debtor’s property is all exempt under federal or state law, so nothing actually gets sold. Individuals must pass a means test comparing their income to the state median to qualify.¹¹

Chapter 13 works differently. Instead of liquidating assets, the debtor proposes a repayment plan lasting three to five years, paying a portion of debts from future income. At the end of the plan, remaining qualifying debts are discharged. Chapter 13 is available only to individuals with regular income whose debts fall below statutory limits. It is popular with homeowners facing foreclosure because it lets them catch up on missed mortgage payments while keeping the house.

Businesses typically file under Chapter 11, which allows them to reorganize their operations and debts while continuing to function. Chapter 11 cases are substantially more complex and expensive than consumer bankruptcies. Certain debts survive bankruptcy no matter which chapter you file, including most student loans, recent tax obligations, and child support.

Administrative Cases

Not every legal dispute plays out in a traditional courtroom. Administrative cases arise when someone challenges a decision made by a government agency. If the Social Security Administration denies your disability benefits, you appeal through the agency’s own process rather than filing a lawsuit in civil court. The SSA gives you 60 days from the date of the decision to request an appeal, and the process moves through several levels before ever reaching a federal judge.¹²

Federal agencies must appoint administrative law judges to preside over these proceedings.¹³ These judges handle disputes across a wide range of regulatory areas: workers’ compensation claims, professional licensing actions, environmental enforcement, and zoning appeals, among others. The hearings are generally less formal than a trial but still require presenting evidence and following agency-specific procedural rules.

If the agency’s internal appeals process does not resolve the dispute, you can seek judicial review in federal court. A reviewing court will set aside an agency decision if it was arbitrary, unreasonable, unsupported by substantial evidence, or made without following required procedures.¹⁴ The court does not redo the agency’s analysis from scratch. It reviews the existing record to decide whether the agency acted lawfully, which means the agency’s factual findings get significant deference. Winning an appeal against an agency ruling is harder than most people expect going in.

Small Claims Court

Small claims court is built for disputes involving modest amounts of money where hiring a lawyer would cost more than the claim itself is worth. Every state operates a small claims division, though the maximum dollar amount varies widely. Most states set the limit somewhere between $5,000 and $10,000, and some go higher. You generally do not need an attorney to file or argue a small claims case, and some states restrict or prohibit attorney involvement entirely to keep the process accessible.

The disputes that land here are the bread and butter of everyday legal conflict: a landlord refusing to return a security deposit, a contractor who did shoddy work, a buyer who bounced a check, a neighbor whose tree damaged your fence. You present your evidence directly to a judge or magistrate, often without formal rules of evidence. Decisions usually come the same day or within a few weeks. If you win and the other side does not pay voluntarily, you still have to take additional steps to enforce the judgment, which is the part most people forget to plan for.

Filing Deadlines by Case Type

Every case type comes with a filing deadline, and missing it can permanently destroy an otherwise valid claim. In civil cases, statutes of limitations set the window for filing suit after the harm occurs. For personal injury claims, most states give you between one and six years, with two years being the most common. Contract disputes typically allow a longer period. For federal civil claims created by an Act of Congress, the default deadline is four years from the date the cause of action accrues.¹⁵

One important exception is the discovery rule, which delays the start of the clock when the injury is not immediately apparent. If a surgeon leaves an instrument inside you and symptoms do not appear for two years, the statute of limitations may not begin running until you knew (or reasonably should have known) about the problem. The discovery rule does not extend the deadline indefinitely; many states impose a separate outer limit that bars claims after a fixed number of years regardless of when you discovered the harm.

Criminal cases have their own deadlines. Most serious felonies have longer statutes of limitations, and murder charges in virtually every jurisdiction can be brought at any time. Administrative appeals often have the tightest windows. The 60-day deadline for Social Security appeals is the kind of deadline that catches people who assume they have months to decide.¹² Whatever type of case you are dealing with, pinning down the filing deadline should be the first thing you do.

1
Constitution Annotated. Sixth Amendment – Right to Effective Assistance of Counsel
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 3559 – Sentencing Classification of Offenses
3
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 3581 – Sentence of Imprisonment
4
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 3571 – Sentence of Fine
5
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 3663A – Mandatory Restitution to Victims of Certain Crimes
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 922 – Unlawful Acts
7
Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 23 – Class Actions
8
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 U.S. Code 1332 – Diversity of Citizenship
9
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 U.S. Code 104 – Compensation for Injuries or Sickness
10
Internal Revenue Service. Tax Implications of Settlements and Judgments
11
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 11 U.S. Code 109 – Who May Be a Debtor
12
Social Security Administration. Appeal a Decision We Made
13
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 5 U.S. Code 3105 – Appointment of Administrative Law Judges
14
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 5 U.S. Code 706 – Scope of Review
15
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 U.S. Code 1658 – Time Limitations on the Commencement of Civil Actions Arising Under Acts of Congress