With the Supreme Court overwhelmed by growing caseloads, Congress passed the Evarts Act (named for its sponsor, U.S. Senator William Evarts of New York), which created a new tier of courts known as the U.S. circuit courts of appeals (later the U.S. courts of appeals). This approach won out over other popular proposals, such as appointing additional justices to the Supreme Court and splitting the Court into divisions that would hear different types of cases, or creating a single national court of appeals. The Evarts Act established one appellate court in each of the nine circuits. The Act also assigned the existing circuit judges to serve on the courts of appeals, authorized an additional judgeship for each circuit, and provided that the circuit justice, the circuit judges, or the district judges could preside over each three-person court of appeals. The circuit courts continued to operate as trial courts, but did not retain their appellate jurisdiction. The existence of a new tier of intermediate appellate courts, from which many cases could not be appealed to the Supreme Court as a matter of right, resulted in a sharp reduction in the Court's caseload.

See also: 

Landmark Legislation: U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals

The Role of the U.S. Courts of Appeals in the Federal Judiciary