16
of Common Pleas) with jurisdiction over civil claims
exceeding $15,000 as well as appeals from admin-
istrative agencies and mental health/probate cases.
Civil claims up to $15,000 are led in the 12 munic-
ipal courts in Cuyahoga County. In addition to these
county-based courts, Ohio has a statewide Court of
Claims, which has jurisdiction over civil claims in which
the State is a defendant as well as claims led in the
Victims of Crime Compensation Program.
The remaining ve counties in the sample each have
a single general jurisdiction court and a single limited
jurisdiction court. Bergen County Superior Court has
exclusive jurisdiction for all general civil cases, but a
separate limited jurisdiction Tax Court has jurisdiction
over administrative agency appeals and tax cases.
The monetary thresholds for the other four limited
jurisdiction courts range from $10,000 (Maricopa
County Justice of the Peace Court) to $40,000 (Oahu,
Hawaii District Court). The general jurisdiction and
limited jurisdiction courts in Miami-Dade maintain
exclusive jurisdiction over their respective caseloads.
The Miami-Dade County Court has jurisdiction over
cases up to $15,000 and the Circuit Court has juris-
diction over cases exceeding $15,000. The general
jurisdiction and limited jurisdiction courts in Allegheny
and Maricopa Counties and Oahu have concurrent
jurisdiction over some portion of their respective civil
caseloads ($0 to $15,000 in Allegheny County, $1,000
to $10,000 in Maricopa, and $5,000 to $40,000
in Oahu).
All of the counties in the sample have small claims
courts. The monetary thresholds for small claims range
from $3,500 (Maricopa County, Arizona) to $12,000
(Allegheny County, Pennsylvania). With the exception
of Bergen County, jurisdiction for small claims cases is
exclusively in the limited jurisdiction courts in counties
with multi-tier court structures.
In November 2013, NCSC contacted each of these
courts in a letter that described the goals and objec-
tives of the Landscape of Civil Litigation in State
Courts study and requested their participation by
providing case-level data for all non-domestic civil
cases disposed in those courts between July 1, 2012
and June 30, 2013.
49
The requested data elements
included the docket number, case name, case type,
ling and disposition dates, disposition type, the
number of plaintis and defendants, the representation
status of the parties, and the case outcome including
award amounts. NCSC project sta obtained detailed
case-level data from all of the contacted courts except
the Superior Court of California, Santa Clara County;
the Bedford, Cleveland Heights, and South Euclid
Municipal Courts in Cuyahoga, Ohio; the Ohio Court
of Claims
50
; and the Decatur and Pike Township Small
Claims Courts in Marion County, Indiana.
51
Upon receipt of the case-level data, NCSC project
sta formatted the individual datasets to conform
to a common set of data denitions based on the
NCSC State Court Guide to Statistical Reporting.
52
The coding process also involved aggregating some
records to obtain a single code or value per case for
datasets that included multiple records per case (e.g.,
judgment amounts, representation status). The nal
dataset consisted of 925,344 cases including aggre-
gated cases from courts unable to provide case-level
data. The NCSC originally intended to apply case
weights to estimate civil cases, characteristics, and
outcomes nationally, but was unable to generate
reliable estimates due to the small sample size and the
complexity of the weighting procedure. Consequently,
these ndings report statistics only for the courts
serving these 10 counties. The counties themselves,
however, reect the variation in national court organi-
zational structures for civil cases. Collectively, their
caseloads comprise approximately ve percent of
general civil caseloads nationally.
49
The State Court Guide to Statistical Reporting includes the following case types as non-domestic civil cases: tort, contract, real property,
guardianship, probate/estate, mental health, civil appeals, and miscellaneous civil (habeas corpus, writs, tax, and non-domestic restraining
orders). NAT’L CTR STATE CTS., STATE COURT GUIDE TO STATISTICAL REPORTING (ver. 2.0) 3-8 (2014) [hereinafter STATE COURT GUIDE].
50
The Ohio Court of Claims was unable to identify cases originating in Cuyahoga County. NCSC sta estimated the number of cases by
multiplying the proportion of the Ohio population residing in Cuyahoga County by the total cases led in the Ohio Court of Claims for one year.
51
The NCSC was ultimately able to obtain aggregate case information for these courts from the Administrative Oce of the Courts in the
respective states, which eliminated the need to select replacement counties.
52
The State Court Guide provides a standardized framework for state court caseload statistics, enabling meaningful comparisons among state
courts. STATE COURT GUIDE supra note 49.