We’ve seen over the past several posts that tort defendants have fared well at the Court in the years since 1990. Justice Kilbride has been in the minority of many of these cases since 2001. For the years 2001 to 2019, Justice Kilbride has voted for tort defendants’ position in 73 cases while voting against defendants 79times. In 2002 and 2003, Justice Kilbride voted for defendants eight times while supporting the plaintiffs’ side 17 times. Since 2016, Justice Kilbride has voted in seven cases for defendants while supporting plaintiffs’ position in ten cases.

In cases won by tort defendants at the Appellate Court, Justice Kilbride has voted 23 times to affirm and 29 times to reverse. From 2008 to 2010, he voted to reverse in nine of thirteen such cases. From 2011 to 2019, he voted to reverse in seven of twelve cases.

Through the end of 2019, Justice Kilbride voted in 100 tort cases which the defendant had lost at the Appellate Court. He split his votes right down the middle – 50 times to reverse, 50 times to affirm. In 2005 and 2008, Justice Kilbride voted to reverse in 12 of 16 cases. Between 2009 and 2014, he voted to affirm in 20 of 36 cases lost by defendants below. Since then, he has voted to reverse in nine of 16 defendants’ losses.

Join us back here next Tuesday as we continue our review of the Justices’ voting records in tort cases.

Image courtesy of Flickr by Matthew Dillon (no changes).