Last week, we reviewed the year-by-year data on the Court’s docket of civil and criminal procedure cases.  This week, we’re taking a more detailed look at those numbers to answer the same questions we addressed a few weeks ago in the context of constitutional law: (1) does the Court take more plaintiffs’ or defense wins from the Court of Appeal? (2) does the Court have a noticeably higher reversal rate on plaintiffs’ or defense wins? and (3) does the Court reverse more often in procedure cases as a whole than the rest of its docket.

In Table 463, we review the Court’s yearly totals affirming defendants’ wins in civil procedure cases.  For the entire period since 1992, the Court has affirmed defendants’ wins 37 times.  The Court affirmed in 1 case in 1992 and 1994, 4 cases in 1995, 3 in 1997 and 1998, 1 in 1999 and 3 in 2000.  The Court affirmed twice in 2002 and 2003, in 3 cases in 2004, 1 in 2005 and 2006, 5 in 2007 and 1 each in 2008 and 2010.  The Court affirmed 1 defendant’s win in 2013, 2014 and 2016, and 2 in 2017.

The Court has reversed defendants’ wins in civil procedure cases 41 times.  The Court reversed 1 case in 1992, 2 in 1993, 1 each in 1994, 1995 and 1996, 3 in 1997, 1 in 1998, 2 in 1999 and 4 in 2000.  The Court reversed in 1 case in 2001 and 2003, 4 in 2004, 3 in 2005, 4 in 2006 and twice in 2007, 2009 and 2010.  The Court reversed in 2 cases in 2011, 1 in 2012 and 2014, and 2 cases in 2017.

Since 1992, the Court has agreed to hear thirteen more plaintiffs’ wins from the Court of Appeal than defendants’ wins.  The Court has affirmed plaintiffs’ wins in 48 cases: 1 in 1993, 2 in 1995, 1 in 1996, 2 in 1997, 1 in 1998, 6 in 1999 and 3 in 2000.  The Court affirmed in 1 case in 2001, 3 in 2002, 1 in 2003, 2 in 2004, 1 in 2005, 5 in 2006, 2 in 2007 and 1 case per year in 2008, 2009 and 2010.

In 2011 and 2012, the Court affirmed one plaintiff’s win.  The Court affirmed 3 times in 2013, once in 2014 and 2015, in 4 cases in 2016 and 3 cases in 2017.

The Court has reversed 43 plaintiffs’ wins from the Court of Appeal since 1992.  This means that for the entire period, the Court has reversed plaintiffs’ wins at a slightly lesser rate than defendants’ wins – 47%-52%.  The Court reversed one plaintiff’s win in 1992, 2 in 1993, 3 in 1994, 1 in 1995 and 1998, 5 times in 1999 and 2 in 2000.  The Court reversed in 1 case in 2001, 3 in 2002, 1 in 2003 and 2004, 2 in 2005 and 2006, and 1 per year in 2007, 2008 and 2009.  The Court reversed 2 plaintiffs’ wins in 2011 and 2012, 1 per year in 2013, 2014 and 2015, 2 in 2016 and 6 times in 2017.

For civil procedure cases as a whole, the Court has reversed 52.35% of the time since 1992 – slightly below its reversal rate for the entire docket.  The Court reversed in 59.09% of its civil procedure cases from 1992 to 1995, but since that time, the reversal rate has been almost identical over time.  From 1996 to 2000, the Court reversed exactly half the time in civil procedure cases.  The Court reversed 51.52% of the time from 2001 to 2005 and again from 2006 to 2010.  The Court has reversed in 52.5% of its civil procedure cases since 2011.

Join us back here tomorrow as we review the data for the Court’s criminal procedure decisions.

Image courtesy of Flickr by Ken Lund (no changes).