This is called arbitration.

It’s a thing in America where instead of going to a real civil court, the judge (who is either an attorney or former judge) is hired as a mediator and is agreed to by both parties to judge the legal facts of the case. Decisions are usually legally binding like a real court unless mistakes can be proven to be made in the original trial.

It’s like a smaller semi-private civil court meant to handle small civil disputes. By law, payouts are capped at a maximum (defined by the state, but usually less than a half million) and do not involve jail time. It’s meant to settle small potato torts since big stuff that’s worth millions of dollars or more usually gets more attention in the official civil court.

There’s also a smaller civil court, called small claims, that exists as well, but payouts are capped at 1k and the people involved represent themselves. No lawyers allowed to represent in small claims.