What Areas of Law Does the California Supreme Court Draw Its Civil Docket From (2000-2002)

By Kirk Jenkins on July 14, 2016

Posted in Areas of Law, The Court of Appeal, The Petition for Review

2537162411_3947c2eece_z

Last week, we wrapped up our detailed analysis of the originating jurisdictions for the California Supreme Court’s civil, criminal and automatic appeal death penalty dockets between 2000 and 2015. Today, we begin a new phase of our analysis – what areas of the law does the Court draw its docket from?

In Table 48 below, we report the areas of the law from which the Court drew its civil docket in 2000 by percentage share of the entire docket. The leading area of the Court’s civil docket that year was constitutional law, which accounted for 10 cases, or 20.41% of the civil docket. Government and administrative law and civil procedure were next, both accounting for 14.29% of the cases. The Court decided six employment law cases – 12.24% of the civil docket. The Court decided three cases each in tort and arbitration law, and two each in domestic relations, consumer law and workers’ compensation law. The Court heard one case each in construction law, riparian rights, commercial law and contracts.

Table 48

Tort law was up sharply in 2001, accounting for eight cases, or 17.02% of the civil docket. Constitutional law was right behind at 14.89%. The Court heard six cases in both government and administrative law and workers compensation – 12.77% of the civil docket. The Court decided five cases each in both civil procedure and insurance law, accounting for 10.64% of the caseload. The Court decided three tax cases (6.38%), and two cases in employment law and wills and estates (4.26%). Finally, the Court heard one case each in domestic relations, commercial and environmental law.

Table 49

We report the data for 2002 in Table 50 below. Tort law was up sharply in 2002, accounting for 13 cases, or 27.08% of the civil docket. The Court heard eight cases each in constitutional law and civil procedure – 16.67% of the civil docket. The Court decided six employment law cases in 2002, or 12.5% of the docket. The Court decided five cases in government and administrative law, for another 10.42%. Another 6.25% of the docket was accounted for by insurance law. The Court decided two cases each in commercial law and wills and estates, and one case involving contract law.

Table 50