Description & Citation--Study No. 23862

• Bibliographic Description
• Scope of Study
• Methodology
• Access and Availability

Bibliographic Description

23862

Civil Justice Survey of State Courts, 2005

United States Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. Bureau of Justice Statistics

United States Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. Bureau of Justice Statistics. Civil Justice Survey of State Courts, 2005 [Computer file]. ICPSR23862-v2. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2011-11-02. doi:10.3886/ICPSR23862.v2

Civil Justice Survey of State Courts: [United States] Series

Scope of Study

The Civil Justice Survey of State Courts (CJSSC), 2005 is a systematic examination of general civil (that is, tort, contract, and real property) cases disposed of by bench or jury trial in a national sample of state courts of general jurisdiction in 2005. This study expands on the 1992, 1996, and 2001 CJSSC by collecting a nationally representative sample of bench and jury trials concluded in 156 urban, suburban, and rural counties. Prior iterations of the CJSSC focused on general civil cases concluded by bench or jury trial in a sample of the nation's 75 most populous counties. The 2005 CJSSC was designed and carried out by the National Center for State Courts. Westat designed the national sampling framework for this survey. The data collection produced two datasets. The first contains information on general civil (tort, contract, and real property) cases disposed of by bench or jury trial in a national sample of counties in 2005. Detailed case level information was obtained on these trials, including types of civil cases litigated at trial, characteristics of litigants involved in trials, who wins in trials, compensatory award amounts, punitive damages, case processing times, and post-trial litigation. The other data file contains aggregate information on the number of general civil trial and nontrial dispositions that occurred in 2005 in CJSCC counties that had the capacity to provide these data. This is the fourth in a series of data collections begun in 1992 [CIVIL JUSTICE SURVEY OF STATE COURTS, 1992 (ICPSR 6587), CIVIL JUSTICE SURVEY OF STATE COURTS, 1996 (ICPSR 2883), and CIVIL JUSTICE SURVEY OF STATE COURTS, 2001 (ICPSR 3957)].

case processing, civil courts, civil law, court cases, court system, disposition (legal), lawsuits, state courts

county

United States

• 2005

• 2005

general civil case

Tort, contract, and real property cases in the United States that were disposed of bench or jury trial within the year 2005.

event/transaction data

In Dataset 1, ICPSR separated the variable AdjotherExp into AdjotherExp_a and AdjotherExp_b and Generalcomments into Generalcomment_a, Generalcomment_b, and Generalcomment_c. The character widths of the original variables were too long for the SAS and Stata files to be produced. Syntax for merging these variables back into their original format is included in the SPSS setup file.

Methodology

The 2005 Civil Justice Survey of State Courts used a stratified, two-stage sample design. Primary sampling units (i.e., PSUs, which were counties or small groups of adjacent counties) were selected at the first stage, and cases were selected at the second stage within the courts serving the relevant counties. Each PSU was assigned to 1 of 55 strata. The first 5 strata contained the 75 most populous counties that were subject to and included in the previous civil trial study. The remaining 50 strata contained the balance of counties in the United States and were defined by Census region, urbanicity and population size (the square root of the estimated 2004 PSU population).

The dataset contains several analysis weights. BWGT0: BWGT0 is the weight used to produce national-level estimates of general civil trial litigation. Calculations of civil trials in the nation's 75 most populous counties can be produced by selecting values 1 through 47 of the site code (Sitecode) variable of the weighted dataset. Replicate weights: The dataset contains 132 replicate weight variables (BWGT1 to BWGT132) appropriate for calculating sampling errors and confidence intervals using WESTVAR PC. The replicate weights were created using the jackknife method and the user must specify the JKn variance estimation procedure when using WESTVAR PC. Note on the JKn and FPC factors required for JKn variance estimation: In order for the JKn procedure to work correctly, it is necessary to attach two files of factors to the WESTVAR PC file. These are the FPC and JKn factors. Both files are included under the Civil Justice Survey of State Courts, 2005 project and should be downloaded and attached to the WESTVAR PC data file. In addition, the degrees of freedom should be set at 78 (132 replicate weights minus 54 noncertainty strata) for the national sample. For calculating confidence intervals for the nation's 75 most populous counties, the degrees of freedom should be set at 28.

standard coding forms completed by court staff

All archived data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. The archive also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, the archive performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

• Performed consistency checks.
• Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.

Access and Availability

Detailed file-level information (such as record length, case count, and variable count) is listed in the file manifest.

2009-01-14

The data are restricted from general dissemination. Users interested in obtaining these data must complete a Restricted Data Use Agreement form and specify the reasons for the request. A copy of the Restricted Data Use Agreement form can be requested by calling 800-999-0960. Researchers can also download this form as a Portable Document Format (PDF) file from the download page associated with this dataset. Completed forms should be returned to: Director, National Archive of Criminal Justice Data, Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research, Institute for Social Research, P.O. Box 1248, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1248, or by fax: 734-647-8200.

• 2011-11-02 All parts are being moved to restricted access and will be available only using the restricted access procedures.

• DS1: Jury and Bench Trial Dataset
• DS2: Manner of Disposition Dataset
• DS3: FPC Factor for Wesvar PC Variance Estimation Program
• DS4: JKN Factor for Wesvar PC Variance Estimation Program