Today, we're continuing our review of civil reversal rates of the Districts and Divisions of the Appellate Court, divided by areas of civil law for the years 2000 through 2009.
Overall, the Supreme Court reversed 100% of the decisions from the First District in wills and estates law and arbitration. Four-fifths of domestic relations decisions were reversed. Three-quarters of cases involving property law were reversed, and 72.7% of tort cases were. The reversal rate was 60.2% in tax cases, 50% in employment law, 44.4% in constitutional law cases, one-third in government and administrative law and commercial law, and 25% in contract law and election law. The rate in insurance law was lowest: 11.2%. None of the decisions in workers compensation or secured transactions were reversed.
Reviewing the individual divisions for outliers, everyone was very tightly clustered in tort cases except Division Five of the First District, which had a tort reversal rate of 100%. Government and administrative law reversal rates ran from 50% in Division Two to zero in Division Four. Divisions One, Two and Three had reversal rates of 100% in domestic relations cases – the reversal rate in Division Four for the decade was zero. Civil procedure rates were all over the place – 100% in Divisions One and Three, 75% in Division Four, half in Divisions Five and Six and only 25% in Division Two. All the constitutional law cases in Division Six were reversed. The rate in Division Five was two-thirds. The rate for Division Four was 50%. All the constitutional law cases in Divisions Two and Three were affirmed. In tax law, the reversal rate for Division Four was 100%, but the rate was zero for Divisions One, Two, Five and Six.
Join us back here next time as we review the reversal rates for the first decade of this century in the Second, Third, Fourth and Fifth Districts of the Appellate Court.
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