New Tennessee Judiciary Report Shows Tennessee Case Filings Continue to Decline

Each year the Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts issues a report on the Tennessee judiciary.  This report shows statistics for case filings (and other important judiciary information) in Tennessee.  The most recent report for fiscal year 2013 – 2014 (covering July 1, 2013 to June 30, 2014) was just released and provides confirmation of previous legal trends in Tennessee.  I previously discussed the downward trend for case filings that has continued since at least 2005.  This new report further confirms this trend for both Chancery and Circuit courts. 

The statistics show a continued decrease in the filing of Tennessee Circuit Court cases.  The total number of case filings for Tennessee Circuit Courts from 2005 to 2014 are as follows:  

As I informed previously, these numbers are expected to continue to decline significantly due to the changes in Tennessee Workers’ Compensation Law.  In this most recent fiscal year there were still 5,338 workers’ compensation case filings.  This will significantly drop in the coming year and will likely go down to zero in a few years based on current Tennessee law where workers compensation cases are no longer filed in the court system but are instead an administrative process. 

The total number of annual case filings in Tennessee Chancery Courts from 2005 to 2014 are as follows: 

            2005 – 2006                                    68,657

            2006 – 2007                                    66,994

            2007 – 2008                                    63,256

            2008 – 2009                                    64,715

            2009 – 2010                                    64,631

            2010 – 2011                                    62,721

            2011 – 2012                                    62,392

            2012 – 2013                                    59,471

            2013 – 2014                                    58,426

This shows a further reduction of over 1,000 case filings less than the most recent prior fiscal year.  According to the statewide Chancery Court numbers, there were still 2,532 workers’ compensation cases filed in Chancery Court the 2013 - 2014 fiscal year.  Those case filings are likely to decline to zero in the next few years. 

As a result of the above statistics for Tennessee Chancery and Circuit Courts, it appears the declining case filing trend line is going to continue for the foreseeable future.  The Tennessee legislature is continuing to reform Tennessee tort law in ways that will continue to reduce litigation in Tennessee.  I will provide additional posts on additional statistics learned from this new report that should be interesting to Tennessee attorneys as well as those involved in handling Tennessee claims or those interested generally in Tennessee law.