Reviewing Reversal Rates In The First District By Area Of Civil Law, 1990-1999 – Constitutional & Administrative Law

Today, we’re beginning a new multi-part series of posts,
looking at the reversal rates for each District and Division of the
Appellate Court by the area of law involved in the case. First up:
the First District Appellate Court in the 1990s. There was only one
environmental law and one election law case, and each was reversed.
Three areas had a 75% reversal rate: domestic relations, property
law and commercial law. The reversal rate for tort law was 65.7%.
In civil procedure, it was 65.6%, and for government and
administrative law cases, just a bit lower still – 65%. The
reversal rate for constitutional law was 54.6%. Half of the wills
and estates cases were reversed. The reversal rates for both
contract and arbitration cases were 40%. Insurance was slightly
lower at 38.5%. One-third of workers compensation cases were
reversed. The lowest subject matter reversal rates for First
District cases were in tax law – 25% – and employment law -
20%.

Reviewing the divisions of the First District for outliers, tort
decisions were reasonably uniform. The reversal rate from Division
One was 87.5%, down to a low of 50% for Division Six. Government
and administrative law decisions were similar – 50% from Divisions
One, Two and Four, 80% from Division Three. The lowest overall
reversal rate – employment law – also saw the widest variance: 100%
for Division Two, zero from Divisions One, Four, Five and Six.
Civil procedure cases ranged from 28.6% reversal in Division One to
75% in Division Six. Insurance decisions had a 100% reversal rate
in Division Five, 50% in Divisions One through Three, and zero in
Division Four. Constitutional law had the same wide spread as
employment law: 100% reversal rate in Division Two; 50% in
Divisions Three, Four and Five; and zero in Divisions One and
Six.

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