BJS: Bureau of Justice Statistics

  Advanced
Search
Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS)
Home | Courts | Civil cases
Civil cases
On This Page
About this Topic

Since 1992, BJS has sponsored periodic surveys examining civil trial and appellate litigation in state courts. These surveys are titled the Civil Justice Survey of State Courts. The Civil Justice Survey of State Courts examines the adjudication of general civil (that is tort, contract, and real property) cases by trial in state courts and has occurred every 4 to 5 years encompassing the time periods of 1992, 1996, 2001, and 2005. The Civil Justice Survey of State Courts data collection series serves as the primary source for detailed level information on civil cases adjudicated by trial in state courts. Unlike BJS’ data collection efforts in the criminal justice area, this data collection series covers cases involving personal injury claims or contractual disputes between private individuals or organizations. Some of the most common types of personal injury lawsuits involve legal issues stemming from automobile accident, physician or surgeon medical malpractice, faulty products (e.g., asbestos, tobacco), and slip and fall cases. The information collected by the Civil Justice Survey of State Courts includes the types of civil cases concluded by bench or jury trial, the types of plaintiffs and defendants who litigate these cases, trial winners, the amount of compensatory and punitive damages awarded, post-trial activity, and case processing time.

In addition, BJS has recently fielded studies examining civil trials on appeal. These studies followed civil trials concluded in 2001 or 2005 in state trial courts that were appealed to an intermediate appellate court or court of last resort. The types of information collected from these studies includes the types of civil cases appealed after trial to an intermediate appellate court or court of last resort, the impact of the appellate process on trial court outcomes, the extent that appellate claims are dismissed or withdrawn before being decided on the merits, the types of legal issues raised on appeal, the number of appeals ending in a published opinion, and the rate of judicial dissent at the appellate level.

BJS has also produced several reports examining civil litigation in Federal District courts.

Summary findings from latest survey examining civil trials in state courts.

Among the 26,948 civil trials concluded in a national sample of state trial courts in 2005:

  • In 2005 plaintiffs won in more than half (56%) of all general civil trials concluded in state courts. Among all plaintiff winners the median final award was $28,000. Approximately 4% of all plaintiff winners won $1,000,000 or more. Contract cases in general had higher median awards ($35,000) than tort cases ($24,000).
  • The total number of civil trials declined by over 50% from 1992 to 2005 in the nation’s 75 most populous counties. Tort cases decreased the least (40%) while real property (77%) and contract (63%) cases registered the largest declines.
  • In the nation's 75 most populous counties, some tort case categories have seen marked increases in their median jury awards. This was particularly the case for product liability trials, where the median awards were about 5 times higher in 2005 than in 1992 and for medical malpractice trials, where the median jury awards more than doubled from $280,000 in 1992 to $682,000 in 2005.

Back to Top
Data Collections & Surveys

Back to Top
Publications & Products


Terms & Definitions

Felony or Serious Misdemeanor The category of offenses for which fingerprints and criminal history information are accepted by the FBI and entered in the Bureau's files, including the III system. Serious misdemeanor is defined to exclude certain minor offenses, such as drunkenness or minor traffic offenses.
 
Back to Top