In our recent expansion of Sedgwick’s California Supreme Court database, one of the variables we added was the originating jurisdiction.  Given that the Court always has a significant number of administrative mandate cases, originating jurisdiction is a more precise measure of where the Court’s cases are coming from than solely tracking the original trial court.

The data from 1994 is reported in Table 227 below.  The Court handled fifteen civil cases originating in the Los Angeles Superior Court.  The Court decided four cases which originated in Orange County, three from San Francisco and two each from Santa Clara, San Diego, Marin, Fresno and Riverside County.  The Court heard one case each which originated with the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, the State Board of Equalization, the State Fair Political Practices Commission, the Trinity County Board of Supervisors, the Commission on Judicial Performance, the Governing Board of the Marin Community College District, the State Board of Forestry, the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors, the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and the Alcoholic Beverage Control Appeals Board.  The Court also heard one case each from Sonoma, San Diego, Lake, Santa Barbara, San Bernardino, Solano, San Mateo, Contra Costa and Ventura counties.

In 1995, the Court heard fifteen cases which originated in Los Angeles County Superior Court, seven in San Francisco, three each in Santa Clara and Sacramento counties, two in Santa Barbara, San Mateo, Contra Costa and Alameda counties.  Four cases originated in the Commission on Judicial Performance.  One each arose in San Diego, Marin, Orange, Riverside, Solano and San Benito counties, as well as the Fair Political Practices Commission, the Public Utilities Commission, the California Personnel Board, the Santa Ana City Council, the Department of Education, the Napa County Board of Supervisors, the San Francisco Tax Collector and the Air Resources Board.

For 1996, the Court heard six civil cases which originated in the Los Angeles County Superior Court, three in San Diego and two each in San Francisco, Orange, San Mateo and Mendocino counties.  The court heard one case each from Sacramento, Sutter and Kern counties, the Industrial Welfare Commission, the Board of Mining and Geology, the Department of Motor Vehicles, the Workers Compensation Commission, the Medical Board, the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board, the Department of Health Services, the Department of Fair Employment and Housing, and the Culver City Council.

Join us back here tomorrow as we look at the originating jurisdictions for the Court’s docket for the years 1997-1999.

Image courtesy of Flickr by Chad McDonald (no changes).