This week, we’re evaluating whether dissent at the Court of Appeal is an indicator of division at the Supreme Court.  Today, we’re looking at the Court’s civil cases between 1990 and 2004.

As we can see from the Table below, there is no relation between the dissent rate at the Court of Appeal and the division rate at the Supreme Court.  Between 1990 and 1993, the percentage of dissents at the Court of Appeal was 12.82%, 7.5%, 15.38% and 17.39%.  For the same years, the percentage of divided decisions at the Supreme Court was 58.97%, 55%, 55.77% and 58.7%.

In 1997, 10% of civil cases had a dissent at the Court of Appeal, while 64% had a dissent at the Supreme Court.  The following year, 7.4% had a dissent at the Court of Appeal, while 53.7% had a dissent at the Supreme Court.  In 2001, 12.5% of civil cases had a dissent below, while 43.75% had a dissent at the Supreme Court.  In 2002, 2.08% had a dissent below, while 39.58% had dissenters at the Supreme Court.  In 2003, only 4.55% had a dissent at the Court of Appeal, but 38.64% of cases had at least one dissenter at the Supreme Court.

Join us back here next time as we review the data for criminal law cases during the same years – 1990 through 2004.

Image courtesy of Flickr by Giuseppe Milo (no changes).