Kirk Jenkins at Sedgwick presents
The California Supreme Court In 2015: A Year In Transition at Law360.
2015
was a year of transition for the California Supreme Court as two new justices
appointed by Gov. Jerry Brown, Justices Mariano-Florentino Cuellar and Leondra
R. Kruger, took office in early January. Because the new justices replaced
Republican appointees, there has been widespread speculation that the court’s
decisions might move in a more liberal direction. One year into the new
justices’ tenure, the statistical evidence for any marked shift at the court is
decidedly mixed.
The SoCal connection:
Not
surprisingly, Los Angeles dominates the court’s civil docket, producing 34.48
percent of the caseload. Orange County was next, with 15.63 percent of the
civil docket, followed by Alameda and San Diego counties, which accounted for
9.38 percent each. San Francisco and the Workers’ Compensation Board accounted
for 6.25 percent of the court’s civil docket apiece.
Other interesting stats & figures:
- The
court’s civil docket was dominated by government and administrative law cases —
43.75 percent of the total caseload. Sixty-four percent of those cases were won
by the plaintiffs below, and the court reversed in two-thirds.
- Overall,
the court reversed in 71.88 percent of its civil cases. This is a significant
increase over its recent trend; the three-year weighted average reversal rate
in civil cases is 61.25 percent. Indeed, the court’s reversal rate in civil
cases has been remarkably stable for quite some time. With the exception of the
two-year blip in 2012 and 2013, the three-year weighted average reversal rate
has been between 57 and 66 percent for the past 16 years.
- Lag
times between the Supreme Court granting review and a final decision have
become a subject of increasing discussion in recent years in the California
appellate bar. ... Non-unanimous civil decisions in 2015 were
pending an average of 700.75 days, and cases decided unanimously were pending
only slightly less — an average of 699.54 days.
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