In FY 2013-14, over 7.5 million cases were filed statewide
in the Superior Courts. The CSR organizes all the cases filed in the
courts in four main case categories—Civil; Criminal; Family and Juvenile;
Probate, Mental Health, Appeals, Habeas. The case filing totals for the
individual case types reported by the courts for FY 2013-14 are as follows:
Civil: The civil case category is made up of unlimited
civil, limited civil, and small claims matters. Civil unlimited cases are
matters where the petitioner is seeking more than $25,000. There were 193,190
unlimited civil cases filed in the courts. Limited civil filings are cases
where the petitioner is seeking $25,000 or less. Limited civil cases totaled
486,597 statewide. Small claims filings are cases where the petitioner is
seeking $10,000 or less and is not represented by counsel. A total of 155,428
small claims cases were filed statewide.
Criminal: The criminal case category is made up of felonies,
misdemeanors, and infractions. The filing totals for the individual case types
are as follows: felony filings represented 272,610 cases, misdemeanor filings
totaled 915,568 cases, and infraction filings accounted for 4,907,906 cases.
Family and Juvenile: Marital filings (dissolutions, legal
separations and nullities) accounted for 138,968 cases and other family law
filings (e.g. paternity, child support) totaled 242,518 cases. Juvenile
delinquency filings totaled 45,824 cases and juvenile dependency filings
totaled 46,889 cases.
Probate, Mental Health, Appeals, and Habeas: The filing
totals for the individual case types are as follows: probate filings totaled
44,298 cases; mental health filings totaled 27,377 cases; civil and criminal
appeal filings totaled 4,317 cases; and criminal habeas corpus filings totaled
7,410 cases.
The largest changes in statewide filings for Superior Courts
from the previous year are in limited jurisdiction case types—misdemeanors and
infractions in the criminal case category and small claims and limited civil in
the civil case category. Limited jurisdiction cases tend to be, on average,
much less complex and resource-intensive for courts than unlimited jurisdiction
case types such as felonies, civil torts, juvenile, probate, and mental health.
Several of the most complex types of cases filed in the courts had an increase
in filings from the previous year, which include the following case types:
Felony, Personal Injury/Property Damage/Wrongful Death (PI/PD/WD), Juvenile
Dependency, Probate, and Mental Health.
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