Legislation that would create an intermediate appeals court in West Virginia is moving at the State Capitol with just a couple of weeks remaining in the regular legislative session.

The Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approved the bill on Thursday.

Charleston Attorney George Carenbauer, who is representing the Business and Industry Council at the State Capitol, says such an intermediate court would provide an automatic right to appeal for all cases.

Right now, the only option for appeals in West Virginia is a discretionary review from the state Supreme Court.  If the Supreme Court decides not to hear your appeal, you're out of luck.

"Some people might say that this is a distinction without a difference, but it's an important distinction to members of the business community, especially people who are looking at West Virginia from outside," Carenbauer said on Thursday's MetroNews Talkline.

In addition to providing another outlet for appeals, he says an intermediate court would take some of the load off of the state Supreme Court.

"West Virginia's Supreme Court is the busiest appellate court in the United States and, in the past ten years, three states with smaller dockets than West Virginia have created intermediate courts of appeal."

Almost 40 states already had such intermediate courts in place.

Earlier this year, state Supreme Court Chief Justice Robin Davis and Justice Menis Ketchum told lawmakers such a court was not needed, even though the Governor's Independent Judicial Reform Committee recommended as much.

Those with the Court say they're making changes to better deal with the number of cases they handle each year.  They say the state cannot afford the estimated more than $1 million it would take to run such a court each year.

Carenbauer says such a take is shortsighted.

"You're relying on five human beings and they're great people and we have a great (Supreme) Court right now, but you need to take a long institutional view," he said.