Last week, we tracked the Supreme Court’s year-by-year record with civil and criminal procedure cases.  This week, we’re taking a deeper look to address several questions: (1) did the Court tend to take more defendants’ or plaintiffs’ wins from the Appellate Court? (2) did the Court reverse either defense or plaintiffs’ wins at a higher rate? and (3) overall, did the Court reverse civil and criminal procedure cases at a higher rate than the rest of the docket?

In Table 719, we report the Court’s yearly total of defense wins affirmed in civil procedure cases.  The Court affirmed five defense wins in 1990, three in 1992, two in 1993, two in 1995, three in 1996, four in 1997,  three in 1998 and two in 1999.  The Court affirmed five defense wins in 2001, one per year in 2002 and 2004, three in 2005 and one per year in 2008 and 2009.  The Court affirmed one defense win in 2011, three in 2012, one in 2013, three in 2014 and one in 2015.

In Table 720, we review the defendants’ wins in civil procedure cases which the Court reversed.  The Court reversed twice in 1990, four times a year in 1991 and 1992, twice in 1993, five times in 1994, four times in 1995, once in 1996, three times in 1997 and once in 1998 and 2000.  The Court reversed once in 2001, three times in 2002, twice in 2003, once a year in 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007, twice in 2008 and once in 2009.  The Court reversed three times in 2012, once each in 2013 and 2014 and twice in 2015.

In Table 721, we report the yearly total of plaintiffs’ wins in civil procedure cases which were affirmed by the Court.  The Court affirmed three plaintiffs’ wins in 1990, one in 1991, three in 1992 and 1993, nine in 1994, three in 1995, one in 1996, two in 1997, three in 1998, one in 1999 and two in 2000.  The Court affirmed once in 2001 and 2002, twice in 2003, once in 2004 and 2005, three times in 2006 and once per year in 2007, 2008 and 2009.  The Court affirmed two plaintiffs’ wins in 2012, one in 2013, three in 2015 and two in 2016.

We report plaintiffs’ wins reversed in Table 722.  The Court reversed six times in 1990, eight in 1991, five in 1992, once in 1993, four times in 1994, twice in 1995 and 1996, three times in 1997, four times in 1998, once in 1999 and twice in 2000.  The Court reversed three times in 2001, twice in 2002, three times in 2003, once in 2005, twice in 2006, four times in 2007 and twice each in 2009 and 2010.  The Court reversed once in 2011 and four times in 2012 and 2015.

We review the yearly reversal rates for the civil procedure docket in Table 723.  For the entire period 1990 through 2017, the Court has reversed in 117 of 212 civil procedure cases, for an overall reversal rate of 55.19% – about where the Court has been with the rest of the docket.  The Court reversed 54.76% of the time in civil procedure cases from 1990 to 1995.  The Court reversed in only 48.72% of civil procedure cases from 1996 to 2000, but reversed 51.52% of the civil procedure cases it decided between 2001 and 2005.  The reversal rate jumped to 73.91% from 2006 to 2010, but the Court’s reversal rate from 2011 to 2017 reverted to pattern – 54.55%.

Join us back here tomorrow as we look at the Court’s criminal procedure decisions.

Image courtesy of Flickr by Bill Taroli (no changes).