Appellate caseload and the switch to comparative negligence

Abstract

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Manna from Heaven for Judges: Judges’ Reaction to a Quasi‐Random Reduction in Caseload

“…The likelihood of an appeal being filed and accepted might be higher for short and less reasoned judgments, and its cost will be higher if the appeal court decides to remand the case and return it to an already overburdened judge. Thus, for example, de Mot et al (2015) showed that judges in courts with higher caseloads adopt legal doctrines that they believe will reduce appeal rates. It might be that judges believe that an intermediate legal outcome would yield fewer appeals from either side (as both partly win), while a full victory (or close to it) is more likely to be appealed by the losing side.…”

“…Best and Tiede (2015) showed that, indeed, when federal district court judges have heavy caseloads, they save time by choosing not to depart downward from the guidelines in cases that may warrant departures, thus leading to longer imprisonment under heavy caseloads. 3 In civil cases, caseload was found to influence not only outcomes and doctrinal development (de Mot et al 2015; see, specifically, for bankruptcy cases Ponticelli & Alencar 2016;Iverson 2017), but also lateral decisions, rendering higher fees to attorneys as caseload rises (Eisenberg et al 2014). Similarly, Helland and Klick (2007) found that when facing an increase in caseload, judges authorize higher attorney fees in class action suits, presumably in order to induce the rapid termination of these cases.…”