Filings down but complexity may be up in Florida court cases
OSCA working on new workload measuring system
Filings for most case types in Florida trial and appellate courts have declined slightly, but that doesn’t mean judicial workload has eased. Many cases required significant time from judges, according to court officials testifying at the Florida House.
The House Civil Justice Subcommittee on January 10 heard from Ninth Circuit Chief Judge Frederick Lauten, First District Court of Appeal Judge Clay Roberts, Supreme Court Clerk John Tomasino, and State Courts Administrator PK Jameson on trends in state court filings. Jameson also reported on a new system of measuring judicial workload that will yield more detailed information to the Legislature and better management tools for the court system.
That system is being tested in 17 counties, eight of which are actually providing some preliminary data, she said.
The Numbers
Overall filings in circuit and county courts have declined slightly in the past five years, although there has been a slight uptick in civil filings, particularly in county courts, for auto windshield and PIP-related cases, Lauten told the committee. Overall, the county courts disposed of more than 2 million civil cases and 500,000 criminal cases last year, The circuit courts handled around 750,000 family, probate, civil, and criminal cases, with family cases accounting for the largest chunk.
Circuit civil case dispositions plunged dramatically after 2014, he said, because using resources provided by the Legislature, the courts reduced the backlog of foreclosure cases from around 350,000 to 85,000.
While case filings might be down slightly, judicial resources remain stretched, Lauten said, noting he has 13 law clerks for 65 circuit judges. Recently they had to close the two divisions of the circuit’s business court — which were the first business speciality courts established in Florida. The judges, he explained, were needed in family courts where many people are self-represented and matters involving emergency petitions for temporary child support and alimony or involving allegations of violence had to be quickly addressed. Judges had 2,000 to 3,000 cases each.
“The decision wasn’t difficult to make, it just wasn’t pleasant to make,” said Lauten, himself a veteran of the business court division, of the transfer. “I knew we had to get resources from one place to the other.”
He noted the Supreme Court in its annual certification opinion recommended two new circuit judges for the rapidly growing Ninth Circuit and said, if those are approved, he plans to reopen the business court division.
Specialty Courts
Lauten also caution on relying too much on filing and disposition numbers. In response to a question, he noted that specialty veterans, mental health, and drug courts are very successful at reducing recidivism and, in the long run, save money by eliminating future court appearances, saving jail space, and related expenses. But they do require more judicial time and other resources, however, such as mental-health services, up front, he said.
Likewise not all cases can be quickly resolved. Lauten recounted a complex case from his business court days over a $190 million construction project that involved 30 parties. Just finding a room large enough for case meetings was a logistical challenge, he said, and lawyers in the case told him it would take five years to prepare for trial.
And he told the committee that to boost court efficiency, “case management and staff attorneys are very beneficial, particularly in the more complicated cases.”
DCAs
Roberts reported that workers’ compensation, administrative law, and juvenile appeals are steady in the district courts of appeal, while criminal and civil appeals have declined slightly, the latter because more cases are settled through alternative dispute resolution before reaching trial.
But the overall workload remains high with each DCA judge adjudicating more than 1,300 cases a year, he said.
The biggest change over the past 10 years for the DCAs has been the switch from paper files to electronic files, which significantly helps the courts’ efficiency. Now instead of passing a paper court file from one judge to the next, any judge at any time can access the files and records without delay.
Tomasino said like the DCAs, the Supreme Court has seen a slight decline in cases, from around 1,500 to 1,250 to 1,300 annually, and that electronic court documents have increased the efficiency of the courts. However, he noted there has been a slight increase in mandatory review cases, such as death penalty appeals, and those are the most complex cases the justices handled. The increase was caused by U.S. Supreme Court rulings affecting death penalty and long sentences for juveniles, which required reviewing many old cases.
Better Data
Jameson said OSCA is working to provide much better data than its current Summary Reporting System (SRS). That system reports cases filed and cases closed, but doesn’t provide much detailed information, such as how long it takes to handle cases. That lack was particularly shown during the foreclosure crisis when some cases lingered for years in the courts which were struggling with the caseloads.
The new system, Jameson said, aims to provide more detailed information about cases,including their age, and make that information almost instantly available.
That will help lawmakers when they consider the Supreme Court’s annual certification for new judges, and give the courts better management tools, she said.
“The project focuses on five specific events in a case,” Jameson said. “We know cases are filed, we know cases are disposed. We don’t have data on what happens in between that, and we don’t connect the cast to the ending.. . . Those events are case initiation, case closure, the status, which includes active or inactive and the case type, and [case] reopens and reclosures.”
Seventeen counties are participating in the initial project, which is starting with circuit civil filings, followed by family court information. Eight of those counties are beginning to report and test data, she said.
“Implementation of this system means that the judges, managers, and staff will soon have access to a variety of management tools, including judicial inventory and pending caseload reports, including the age of the pending cases,” Jameson said, “Judge, managers, and staff will also have access to summary statistics, clearance rate reports, and disposition reports. This information will be used across the organization to identify a path to process improvement.”
The system will eventually be expanded to include information not usually kept by clerks, such as the need for interpreters, expert witness use, whether there was a court recorder or electronic recording, and other such information, she said.
It will eventually be expanded to “problem-solving” courts such as drugs, veterans, and mental health courts, and can be used to evaluate the success of new court programs, Jameson said. And the system will be able to provide great detail, such as county-by-county comparisons and even judge-by-judge workloads.
OSCA and clerks have worked cooperatively on the new workload measuring system, Jameson said, and have not required any extra appropriations.
