This time, we’re reviewing the reversal rates in civil cases, divided by the area of law, for the Second, Third, Fourth and Fifth Districts of the Appellate Court between 2000 and 2009.

Overall, 77.8% of employment law cases were reversed by the Supreme Court.  The reversal rate for commercial law cases was 71.4%.  Two-thirds of property and election law cases were reversed.  The reversal rate was two-thirds for property and election law cases, 64.7% for government and election law, 62.5% for domestic relations, 60.4% for tort cases and 60% for workers compensation cases.  The reversal rate for civil procedure was 56.7%.  For insurance law cases, it was 53.3% and for contract and arbitration cases, the reversal rate was 50%.  Four subjects had reversal rates under one-half – wills and estates, constitutional law and tax law (each at 40%) and environmental law, for which the reversal rate was only 25%.

Not surprisingly, the highest individual reversal rate for tort cases was the Fifth District, at 83.3%.  Only 40% of Third District decisions were reversed.  The reversal rate for government and administrative law was 100% in the Third District, 80% in the Second, but only 42.9% in the Fifth.  The Fourth District’s reversal rate was 83.3% for domestic relations cases; for the Second, it was only 20%, and for the Fifth District, 0%.  For insurance law cases, reversal rates ranged from 100% for the Fifth District to only 20% for Third District cases.  The Third and Fifth Districts had 100% reversal rates for constitutional law cases, while the rate in the Second and Fourth Districts was only 25%.  Workers compensation ranged from 100% in the Third District to 25% in the Third and 0% in the Second.

Join us back here next time as we review the data for the years 2010 through 2019.

Image courtesy of Flickr by Teemu008 (no changes).