FJC Publishes Summary Judgment Study

The Federal Judicial Center (FJC) has published its study of summary judgment entitled A Quarter Century of Summary Judgment Practice in Six Federal District Courts. Here is the abstract of the study:

Summary judgment in federal courts has been widely regarded as an initially underused procedural device that was revitalized by the Supreme Court trilogy in 1986, and may have expanded to the point that it presently threatens the right to trial. We examined summary judgment practice in six federal district courts during six time periods over twenty-five years (1975-2000), extracting information on summary judgment practice from 15,000 docket sheets in random samples of terminated cases. While summary judgment motions have increased over time, this increase reflects, in part, increased filings of civil rights cases which have always experienced a higher rate of summary judgment motions. We found that when we controlled for changes types of cases being filed the likelihood of one or more motions for summary judgment in a case increased before the Supreme Court trilogy and has remained fairly steady since that time. The Supreme Court trilogy appears to have had a more specific effect on the disposition of summary judgment motions in torts cases. The likelihood of one or more motions for summary judgment in torts case being granted in whole or in part increased immediately after the trilogy, then returned to the pre-trilogy level. The trilogy also appears to have increased the likelihood that a torts case was terminated by summary judgment, an effect that has been sustained long after the trilogy. Surprisingly, no statistically significant changes over time were found in the outcome of defendants' and plaintiffs' motions after controlling for courts and type of cases. These findings call into question the interpretation of those who view the trilogy as leading to expansive increases in summary judgment. This analysis suggests that civil rules changes and federal case management practices may be more important in bringing about changes in summary judgment practice, and demonstrates the manner in which a trans-substantive Supreme Court precedent may find its expression in a narrower range of cases.

A copy of the study is available from SSRN by clicking here.