Civil Justice Survey of State Courts, 1996 (ICPSR 2883)
Version Date: Nov 2, 2011 View help for published
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United States Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. Bureau of Justice Statistics
Series:
https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR02883.v4
Version V4
Summary View help for Summary
In 1996, the Bureau of Justice Statistics awarded a grant to the National Center for State Courts to gather detailed information on tort, contract, and real property rights trial cases in 45 jurisdictions chosen to represent the 75 most populous counties in the nation. The result is this survey, which is a systematic examination of civil trial cases disposed in state general jurisdiction courts. The study expands the 1992 civil jury study, CIVIL JUSTICE SURVEY OF STATE COURTS, 1992 (ICPSR 6587), by specifically sampling bench and jury trial cases. Information gathered includes the type of case, the presence of legal representation, the type of litigation, the amount of compensatory damages awarded, the amount of punitive damages awarded, and case processing time.
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Access to these BJS-sponsored data is restricted. Users interested in obtaining these data must complete a NACJD Restricted Data Use Agreement available from the ResearchDataGov website, specify the reasons for the request, and obtain IRB approval or notice of exemption for their research.
Restricted Data Use Agreements available on the NACJD website are provided for reference only. Please visit the ResearchDataGov website to download the appropriate Restricted Data Use Agreement and submit your request. Once approved, data may be accessed from a requester secure site via ICPSR's secure download procedures.
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Date of Collection View help for Date of Collection
Data Collection Notes View help for Data Collection Notes
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The data collection contains 100 replicate weight variables (REPWT1 to REPWT100) appropriate for calculating sampling errors using the Wesvar PC variance estimation program, plus two variables, VARSTRAT and VARUNIT, that were developed as part of the processing for creating the replicate weights. The replicate weights were created by the jackknife method and the user must specify the JKN variance estimation procedure when using Wesvar PC. The JKN variance estimation procedure will not work correctly unless two factor files are attached to the Wesvar file. Users should download da2883.p2 and da2883.p3, change the file names to fpc96.txt and jknf96.txt, and attach both files to the Wesvar data file. In addition, the degrees of freedom should be set at 81 in Wesvar (100 replicate weights, 19 varstrat units) in order to calculate the correct confidence intervals.
Sample View help for Sample
A two-stage stratified sample was drawn, with 45 of the 75 most populous counties selected at the first stage. The top 75 counties account for about 37 percent of the United States population and about half of all civil filings. The sample consisted of tort, contract, and real property rights cases disposed by trial between January and December 1996. For each sampled case, a standard coding form was manually completed by court staff on-site to record information about litigants, case type, processing time, and award amounts.
Universe View help for Universe
Tort, contract, and real property cases in the 75 most populous counties in the United States.
Data Source View help for Data Source
standard coding forms completed by court staff
Data Type(s) View help for Data Type(s)
HideOriginal Release Date View help for Original Release Date
2000-09-18
Version History View help for Version History
- United States Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. Bureau of Justice Statistics. Civil Justice Survey of State Courts, 1996. ICPSR02883-v4. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2011-11-02. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR02883.v4
2011-11-02 All parts are being moved to restricted access and will be available only using the restricted access procedures.
2004-06-10 The principal investigator revised the replicate weights so that they would more accurately reflect county stratifications. The principal investigator also added a few variables that (1) take inflation into account when calculating the damage awards, and (2) better identify the trial cases. Corresponding changes were made to the SAS and SPSS data definition statements and the codebook.
2001-03-15 Additional documentation has been added to the codebook by the principal investigator.
2001-03-15 Additional documentation has been added to the codebook by the principal investigator.
2000-10-16 The data were revised to change software-specific system missing characters to blanks, and corresponding changes were made to the SAS and SPSS data definition statements and the codebook.
2000-09-18 ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR 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, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:
- Performed consistency checks.
- Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.
Notes
The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public. Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.
One or more files in this data collection have special restrictions. Restricted data files are not available for direct download from the website; click on the Restricted Data button to learn more.