Today and next week, we’re reviewing the Court’s year by year record in tort cases – what’s the defendants’ won-loss record, how often were tort defendant wins from the Court of Appeal affirmed and losses reversed. In Table 1255, we report insurers’ yearly won-loss record from 1990 to 1999. What’s evident from the data is that tort defendants were doing quite well from 1990 to 1993, but for the rest of the decade, the numbers corrected noticeably. From 1990 to 1993, defendants won 20, losing only 10. Strike out their 1-6 won-loss record in 1991 and those numbers are even more lopsided (defendants were 4-0 in 1990 and 9-1 in 1993). But from 1994 to 1999, tort defendants won 35 cases while losing 28. So what this means for the decade as a whole is that defendants won 55 cases, losing 38 – a winning percentage of .591.

In our next table, we show the affirmances and reversals of decisions won by tort defendants at the Court of Appeal. We notice immediately that there are no lopsided years in terms of wins and losses; winning insurers were breaking even nearly every year. For the decade, insurers successfully defended 16 wins from the Court of Appeal while losing 19 of those cases.

Of course, this means that tort defendants were faring quite well during the nineties in terms of obtaining reversal in cases they lost at the Court of Appeal. Indeed, from 1992 to 1995, defendants who lost below received 20 reversals of those losses while seeing only four affirmances. From 1997 to 1999, tort defendants who lost below won 15 cases while losing 9. For the entire decade, tort defendants who lost below won 36 cases, losing only 21.

Join us back here next Tuesday as we review the overall data for tort cases from 2000 to 2019.

Image courtesy of Flickr by TPSDave (no changes).