For the last two weeks, we’ve been taking an intensive look at reversal rates before the Illinois Supreme Court, disaggregated by areas of law, for the past fifteen years.
We turn finally to the 2010-2014 period – with the exception of Chief Justice Thomas Fitzgerald’s ten-month service in 2010, the tenure of the current seven Justices. During these four and a half years, the share of the civil docket occupied by tort law cases has remained relatively constant. Civil procedure, domestic relations and constitutional law are shifting, however – civil procedure and domestic relations cases have significantly increased, and constitutional law cases are down. Insurance and workers compensation are significantly down as a portion of the Court’s civil docket as well.
Where the Court’s civil caseload has been relatively evenly distributed during the previous five years between conservative and liberal Appellate Court decisions, since 2010 the Court has tended to accept more liberal Appellate Court decisions in the fields of tort, insurance and government and administrative law:
Tomorrow we’ll continue our close look at the Court’s reversal rates between 2010 and 2014.
Image courtesy of Flickr by Josiah MacKenzie (no changes).