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Each year the Tennessee Judiciary
publishes an annual report discussing the Tennessee judiciary. This report provides detailed statistical
information about Tennessee courts and the cases they handle and resolve. The
fiscal year, 2011-2012, report is the most recent report that has been released. This post will discuss some of the statistics
for Tennessee Chancery Courts.
CASES
FILED:
In fiscal year 2011-2012, there were a
total of 62,392 cases filed in Tennessee Chancery Courts. That is one Chancery Court case per 103
residents of Tennessee (2012 TN population was
6,456,243). There are approximately 17,203
lawyers in Tennessee so that means there were a total of 3.62 Chancery
court cases filed per Tennessee attorney (did you file your share?). Of note to Tennessee litigators specifically,
the following are the total number of cases filed in Tennessee Chancery Courts
pertaining to specific types of cases involving litigation type matters:
Probate/trust issues 10,689
Miscellaneous general civil 7,160
Contract/debt/specific performance 3,133
Worker’s compensation cases 2,625
Real estate matters 1,173
Damages/torts 69
Medical malpractice 0
These numbers show
what many lawyers already know to be true.
Damages/torts cases are almost always filed in Circuit Court, not
Chancery Court. Additionally, probate
and trust matters consist of approximately 17% of the Tennessee Chancery Court
caseload.
It is also interesting
to look at the trend line for total number of cases filed in Tennessee Chancery
Courts. Specifically, the total number
of filings since fiscal year 2005-2006 through the present are as follows:
2005-2006 68,567
2006-2007 66,994
2007-2008 63,256
2008-2009 64,715
2009-2010 64,631
2010-2011 62,721
2011-2012 62,392
The numbers have
been on a pretty consistent path downward and I expect that to continue for
years to come. One major change starting
in July 2014 that will further reduce this number is the fact Tennessee Workers
Compensation cases will no longer be filed in Tennessee courts but will
rather be handled by an administrative process at the Tennessee Department of Labor.
CASES RESOLVED:
In the fiscal year
2011-2012, 61,448 cases were disposed of by the State of Tennessee Chancery
Courts. This is only slightly behind the
number of cases that were filed (resulting in an increase of 944 pending cases
in Tennessee Chancery Courts for the 2011 – 2012 fiscal year).
The following
dispositions were made in Tennessee Chancery Courts that resolved:
Court approved settlement 27,133
Trial – non-jury 9,351
Dismissal 8,419
Compromise/settlement – no hearing 7,314
Uncontested/default 4,719
Other 2,621
Withdrawn 1,465
Transferred 406
Trial – jury 20
Almost half of the resolved
cases were disposed of by a court approved settlement. Surprisingly, 15% of Chancery cases were
disposed of by a non-jury trial. Only 20
jury trials occurred in Tennessee Chancery cases in this fiscal year.
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