Exclusive jurisdiction means that only one court has the power to hear a case, while concurrent jurisdiction means that more than one court would have the power to hear the case. In addition to having limited or general jurisdiction, and exclusive or concurrent jurisdiction, all courts are courts either of original jurisdiction or appellate jurisdiction. Original jurisdiction is also referred to as trial court jurisdiction, lower court jurisdiction, court of first instance, and nisi prius court. Appellate courts review the legal rulings of lower courts. Some courts have both original jurisdiction in certain types of cases and appellate jurisdiction in others.
Most states have a two-tier trial court system.
The lower trial court is usually a court of limited jurisdiction and the higher trial court is court of more general jurisdiction. Frequently, there is some overlap, i.e. some concurrent jurisdiction, between the lower trial court and the higher trial court. For some types of cases, there is exclusive jurisdiction in either the district court or circuit court. For example, the district court has exclusive jurisdiction over certain types of landlord-tenant cases, and the circuit court has exclusive jurisdiction over declaratory judgments. For most cases, however, jurisdiction is determined by the amount in controversy in civil cases and the felony versus misdemeanor classification, or the maximum potential penalty, or both, in criminal cases.