Last week, we turned our attention to two new two areas of law in our ongoing review of the Court’s decision making – on the civil side, arbitration cases, and on the criminal side, cases involving property crimes.  Today, we’re taking a more in-depth look at the Court’s arbitration decisions.

Since 1990, a lopsided proportion of the arbitration cases the Court has opted to hear were won by the plaintiffs below – 68.75% of the total.  Among the relatively few arbitration cases won by the defendants below, the Court’s reversal rate is only 40%.  In Table 868, we report both defense wins affirmed (“CC” in the table) and defense wins reversed (“CL”).  The Court affirmed one defense win in 1992, 1995 and 1997 and reversed on in 2001 and one in 2017.

Not surprisingly, given that the Court took significantly more plaintiffs’ wins in arbitration than defendant’s wins, the Court reversed plaintiffs’ wins at a substantially higher rate – since 1990, the Court has reversed 72.73% of the plaintiffs’ wins it has heard in arbitration cases.  We report both plaintiffs’ wins affirmed (“LL”) and plaintiffs’ wins reversed (“LC”) below.

The Court reversed one plaintiff’s win in 1991.  It affirmed one plaintiff’s win and reversed two in 1998.  The Court reversed two plaintiffs’ wins in 2004.  In 2006, plaintiffs who won below hit .500 at the Court – one win, one loss.  The Court reversed a plaintiff’s win in 2010, affirmed one in 2011 and reversed one in 2012.

Overall since 1990, the Court has reversed in 62.5% of its arbitration cases, a rate several points above its overall pace of reversals.  Between 1990 and 1995, the Court reversed in one of three arbitration cases.  Between 1996 and 2000, the Court reversed in two of four.  Between 2001 and 2005, the Court reversed completely all three of the arbitration decisions it reviewed.  Between 2006 and 2010, the Court reversed in two of three arbitration cases.  Since that time, the Court has reversed in two of its three arbitration cases.

Join us back here tomorrow as we discuss the Court’s decisions involving property crimes.

Image courtesy of Flickr by Marc Smith (no changes).