United States: How Common Are Governmental Parties In The Court's Civil Docket?

For the past several weeks, we've looked at the Court's record with death penalty appeals. This week and next, we're looking at the Court's record with parties that are governmental entities.

In Table 559, we report the total number of petitioners who were government entities between 1990 and 2004. Governmental petitioners varied widely from 1990 through 1993: 15 in 1990, 6 in 1991, 20 in 1992 and 8 in 1993. There were fifteen petitioners in 1994, thirteen in 1995, fourteen in 1996 and 1997 and 18 in 1998. There were eight governmental entity petitioners in 1999, five in 2000, 11 in 2001, 12 in 2002, 7 in 2003 and 18 in 2004.

We report the number of government entity petitioners for the years 2005 through 2016 in Table 560. The Court decided eleven cases involving public entities in 2005 and 2006, 7 in 2007, 6 in 2008, 8 in 2009, 3 in 2010 and nine each in 2011 and 2012. The Court decided thirteen cases involving public entity petitioners in 2013, five in 2014, eleven in 2015 and 6 cases in 2016.

In Table 561, we report the number of public entity respondents year by year for the years 1990 through 2004. The Court decided eleven cases involving public entities in 1990, ten in 1991 and 11 in 1992. The Court decided five public entity cases in 1993 and 19 in 1994. The Court decided five cases with public entity respondents in 1995, 7 in 1996 and four in 1997. The Court decided seventeen cases involving public entity respondents in 1998, seven in 1999, six in 2000 and 2001, three in 2002, fifteen in 2003 and seven in 2004.

We report the data for respondents during the years 2005 through 2016 in Table 562. The Court decided six cases with public entity respondents in 2005, 11 in 2006, ten in 2007 and 11 in 2008. The Court decided nine cases involving public entity respondents in 2009 and 2010, seven each in 2011 and 2012, and six each in 2013 and 2014. The Court decided seven cases involving public entity respondents in 2015 and six in 2016.

Join us back here tomorrow as we continue our analysis of the Court's public entity parties.

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.