Tennessee Judiciary Report (Fiscal Year 2016 – 2017) Shows Tennessee Case Filings Continue to Decline

Every year the Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts issues a report on the Tennessee judiciary that provides useful statistics for case filings and results Tennessee.  The most recent report is the one for fiscal year 2016 – 2017 (covering July 1, 2016 to June 30, 2017).  As with every year, there is a significant delay from the end of the fiscal year and the time we actually obtain the annual report.  This report confirms the longstanding trends in the law in Tennessee – especially in the Circuit court filings.  There is now a longstanding trend downward in the case filings in both Circuit and Chancery courts since at least 2005 (although Chancery Court has stabilized over the last 2 years) this year, Circuit court even had a more drastic drop in filings.   

The statistics show a continued decrease in the filing of Tennessee Circuit Court cases.  This decrease has accelerated in recent years.  The total number of case filings for Tennessee Circuit Courts from 2005 to 2017 are as follows:

            2005 – 2006                                                                  67,090

            2006 – 2007                                                                  64,837

            2007 – 2008                                                                  62,204

            2008 – 2009                                                                  64,296

            2009 – 2010                                                                  63,536

            2010 – 2011                                                                  62,733

            2011 – 2012                                                                  62,243

            2012 – 2013                                                                  60,063

            2013 – 2014                                                                  59,547

            2014 – 2015                                                                  56,541

            2015 – 2016                                                                  53,948

            2016 – 2017                                                                  52,647

These numbers may stop declining over the next few years.  One of the significant changes that contributed to the decline was the change to Tennessee Workers’ Compensation Law (to an administrative law situation) that went into effect July 1, 2014.  In this most recent fiscal year there were still 718 workers’ compensation case filings (mostly settlements) in Circuit courts across the state.  This will continue to drop in the coming years and will likely go down to zero in a few years based on current Tennessee law.  These statistics show that Circuit court case filings have dropped 21.5% since 2005.  Further, in just the last three fiscal years, the filings in Circuit have dropped a total of11.6%. 

The total number of annual case filings in Tennessee Chancery Courts from 2005 to 2017 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

            2014 – 2015                                                                  57,251

            2015 – 2016                                                                  58,047

            2016 – 2017                                                                  58,087

This shows a reduction of 15.4% of filings in Chancery court since 2005.  According to the statewide Chancery Court numbers, there were still 491 workers’ compensation cases filed in Chancery Court the 2016 - 2017 fiscal year. 

The declining case filing trend line in Tennessee continues and likely will continue for the foreseeable future.  The Tennessee legislature is continuing to reform Tennessee tort law on an annual basis.  Usually these changes impact the value of cases and the access to be able to file certain cases. This will continue to put pressure on the legal industry in Tennessee as less cases are financially viable.