For the past few weeks, we’ve been studying the Court’s collective and individual voting records in tort cases. Chief Justice Burke participated in ninety civil tort cases since taking her seat on the Court. She has voted for defendants’ position (at least in part) in 57 cases and voted for plaintiffs 33 times. Between 2006
Since joining the Supreme Court, Justice Karmeier has participated in 109 tort cases. He has voted for defendants in 73 of those cases and for plaintiffs 36 times. Between 2005 and 2008, he voted for defendants in 23 cases and for plaintiffs 15 times. Between 2009 and 2012, he voted for defendants 26 times and
Through the end of 2019, Justice Thomas had voted in 141 tort cases. He voted for defendants in 93 of those cases and voted for plaintiffs 48 times.
Justice Thomas’ voting patterns in tort cases have remained relatively stable throughout his tenure. From 2001 to 2004, he voted 30 times for defendants, 16 for plaintiffs.
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
Over the past few weeks, we’ve been reviewing the Court’s thirty year record in civil tort cases – defendants’ overall won-loss records, the frequency with which the Court affirms (or reverses) defendants’ wins from the Appellate Court, and the frequency with which the Court reverses (or affirms) decisions lost by defendants below. Now let’s take
Tort defendants continued to fare quite well at the Supreme Court over the past ten years, winning 41 cases while losing 23. Defendants won nine of twelve cases in 2011, seven of ten in 2012, six of seven in 2015 and five of seven in 2017.
The Court reviewed relatively few decisions where defendants prevailed
Tort defendants had another good decade before the Supreme Court during the years 2000 to 2009, winning 64 cases and losing 42. In 2001, defendants won eight of nine cases. In 2004, tort defendants went 10-3. In 2009, defendants won six of eight.
In our next Table, we review the data on how tort defendants
Today, we’re beginning our review of voting records for a new area of law – tort. Today and next week, we’ll be working our way through the data showing how tort defendants have fared at the Appellate Court since 1990: total wins and losses; wins from the Appellate Court affirmed (and reversed); and losses from
Today, because insurer cases have been comparatively uncommon in recent years, we’re reviewing our final two sets of Justices’ voting records in a single post. First, Justice Theis.
Since joining the Court, Justice Theis has participated in ten civil cases involving insurers as named parties, supporting the insurers in six of those cases and voting
We continue our analysis of the individual Justices’ voting records in insurance law cases with Chief Justice Burke.
During her tenure, the Chief Justice has sat on 24 civil cases involving insurer parties. She has split her votes down the middle: 12 votes for the insurer, 12 votes against. Those totals hold even when we