Philadelphia Municipal Court

The Philadelphia Municipal Court is a trial court of limited jurisdiction in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, part of the First Judicial District within Pennsylvania's Unified Judicial System. It functions as Philadelphia's substitute for the magisterial district courts used elsewhere in the state and is staffed by 27 judges elected by Philadelphia voters. The court operates three divisions: a Criminal Division that tries misdemeanors and summary offenses and handles preliminary matters in felony cases from the Justice Juanita Kidd Stout Center for Criminal Justice, a Civil Division that hears small claims, landlord tenant evictions and civil enforcement actions, generally capped at $12,000 though the city may pursue larger delinquent tax and utility claims, from the Widener Building, and a Traffic Division created by a 2013 state law that abolished the separate Philadelphia Traffic Court and moved its caseload into Municipal Court. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/