Legal Definitions - in bank

The term "in bank," more commonly referred to as en banc, refers to a session where all the judges of a court, or a majority of them, participate in hearing and deciding a case, rather than the usual smaller panel of judges. This typically occurs in appellate courts, such as federal circuit courts of appeals or state supreme courts, when a case involves a particularly significant legal question, a need to resolve conflicting decisions by different panels of the same court, or to ensure uniformity in the court's rulings.

Examples:

• Imagine a situation where a three-judge panel of a U.S. Court of Appeals issues a ruling that creates a significant conflict with a previous decision made by another three-judge panel in the same circuit. To resolve this inconsistency and establish a unified legal precedent for the entire circuit, the court might decide to rehear the case en banc. This means that instead of just three judges, all active judges on that Court of Appeals would participate in reviewing the arguments and issuing a new decision, ensuring that the court speaks with one voice on that important legal matter.

• Consider a state's highest court, often called the Supreme Court, which typically has seven or nine justices. When this court hears an appeal, it almost always does so en banc. For instance, if a complex constitutional question arises from a lower court's decision, all the justices on the state's Supreme Court would sit together to hear the oral arguments and deliberate on the case. This ensures that the most important legal issues affecting the state are decided by the full complement of its highest judicial authority, providing a definitive interpretation of the law.

• Suppose a company loses a patent infringement case before a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Feeling that the panel misapplied a crucial area of patent law, the company might petition the court for an en banc rehearing. If the court grants this request, it signifies that the legal issue is deemed important enough for all the active judges of the Federal Circuit – which specializes in patent law – to review the case collectively. This allows the entire court to reconsider the panel's decision and potentially establish a new, binding interpretation of patent law for future cases.