Note: Most data sets are publicly available on the ICPSR website
Civil Justice Survey of State Courts, 2005
This iteration is a significant expansion of previous studies as it includes data from 156 counties, representing a national sample of all counties nationwide. This is the first look at civil litigation in rural and suburban jurisdictions. The purpose of the study is to accurately record current trends in civil litigation and inform civil justice concerns such as the medical malpractice litigation, declining trends in jury trial rates, and explore the breakdown of damages to identify compensatory (economic and non-economic) damage and punitive damage amounts. This study significantly expands on the 1992, 1996, and 2001 projects by collecting a nationally representative samples of bench and jury trials concluded in 156 urban, suburban, and rural counties.
Datasets:
Pending:
Civil Justice Survey of State Courts, 2001
These data examined general civil cases (torts, contracts, and real property) disposed of by bench or jury trial in the nation's 75 most populous counties in 2001. Information reported includes the type of case, types of plaintiffs and defendants, trial winners, amount of total damages awarded, amount of punitive damages awarded, and case processing time. New in this iteration are data on alternative dispute resolution, post-trial motions, and whether the parties sought appellate review. The sample included all medical malpractice and product liability trials from the selected counties.
This project also included a Supplemental Study of Civil Appeals, 2001, in which all trials with a notice of appeal filed by either party were followed through the appellate court process. The resulting dataset would be the first time that researchers and policy makers would be able to examine appellate characteristics and dispositions for civil trials, but also to compare the characteristics of appeals cases to those of cases that were not appealed, thus providing a fuller and more holistic context in which to consider contemporary issues and problems in civil litigation.
Civil Justice Survey of State Courts, 1996
This iteration explored bench and jury trials from a sample of 45 of the 75 most populous counties in the nation. Based on the previous iteration, this study narrowed the focus to an investigation into cases disposed by trial. Information gathered includes the type of case, the presence of legal representation, the type of litigation, the amount of compensatory damages awarded, the amount of punitive damages awarded, and case processing time.
Civil Justice Survey of State Courts, 1992
This survey is the first broad-based, systematic examination of the nature of civil litigation in state general jurisdiction trial courts. The data collection produced two datasets. Part 1, Tort, Contract, and Real Property Rights Data, is a merged sample of approximately 30,000 tort, contract, and real property rights cases disposed during the 12-month period ending June 30, 1992. Part 2, Civil Jury Cases Data, is a sample of about 6,500 jury trial cases disposed over the same time period. Data collected include information about litigants, case type, disposition type, processing time, case outcome, and award amounts for civil jury cases.