For the next few weeks, we’ll be taking a deep dive on the Supreme Court’s tort cases. To begin, we’ll consider whether there is any relationship between the party which won at the Court of Appeal and the result at the Supreme Court in tort cases for the years 1990 through 1999.
We begin with the overall reversal rate, year by year, in tort cases for the decade. In 1990, three-quarters of the Court’s tort cases were reversed. The rate fell to 42.86% in 1991 and 55.56% in 1992 before rising to 80% in 1993 and 83.33% in 1994. In 1995, the reversal rate was 66.67%. None of the Court’s tort cases were reversed in 1996, but the rate was 70% in 1997, 50% in 1998 and 53.85% in 1999.
Between 1990 and 1999, the Supreme Court decided 35 tort cases won by the defendants at the Court of Appeal level. The Court decided 58 cases won by the plaintiffs below. The reversal rate for defendants’ wins was 45.71% – 19 reversals in 35 cases. The reversal rate for plaintiffs’ wins was 67.24% – thirty-nine reversals in 58 cases.
Join us back here tomorrow as we continue our examination of the Court’s tort cases between 1990 and 1999.
Image courtesy of Flickr by Mike McBey (no changes).