News and Views Issue 3: Spring 2000
An Overview of Civil Case Processing in Ottawa
By Bob Kingsley, Senior Advisor, Canadian Centre
for Justice Statistics
Over the past several years in Canada, there have been a number of calls for statistical
information in the area of civil justice. In addition to the recent work of the
Canadian Bar Association Systems of Civil Justice Task Force, several Canadian
provinces have undertaken independent reviews of the justice system; all have
discussed the need for management information in the civil courts as a prerequisite
to introducing appropriate and effective court reforms. There has been a handful
of empirical studies in Canada focussing on various aspects of civil justice.
To date, however, the need for civil justice statistical information has not been
completely defined. In 1995, in an introductory work prepared for the Ontario
Civil Justice Review, Professor Rod Macdonald stated: "We really don't know what
most citizens expect of the civil justice system across the various fields of
law that are currently managed through the courts. And we really don't know much
about overall patterns and rates of civil litigation." The study findings reported
here contribute to Canadian civil justice information, and help establish a framework
for examining some of the questions surrounding the nature of cases in the civil
system and their progress through the courts.
Located within Statistics Canada, the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics (CCJS)
is a federal-provincial enterprise responsible for collecting and publishing information
on the administration of criminal and civil justice in Canada. While the CCJS
does not currently conduct ongoing data collection in the civil courts area, the
topic has been identified as an emerging priority. As such, various options for
the establishment of a civil court survey are being explored. As part of this
work, a pilot survey in the Ottawa Civil Court (General Division) was undertaken.
One of the main objectives of the Ottawa study was to contribute to the development
of an ongoing national civil court survey by helping to define survey scope, variable
definitions, data collection methods and costs. This article presents a brief
summary of some of the important findings from the Ottawa study.
Ottawa Study
Data collection for the Ottawa study included all Superior Court general civil and divorce cases, but excluded probate and family cases. At the time of the study, custody, maintenance and other family issues were generally dealt with in Provincial Court Family Division. The civil court data were split into three categories based on the type of process used to initiate the case. Thus the study looked at cases initiated by: 1) statement of claim; 2) application; and 3) divorce petition. These case types were separated because the nature of the civil process and the details surrounding final dispositions are quite different for each category.
The study drew two different samples. It collected a census of all 212 "trial ready cases" (cases that had been placed on a trial ready list when a certificate of readiness for trial was filed), and 46 "trial cases" (cases that had actually proceeded to trial). The study also collected a randomly generated sample of 601 of a total of 10,585 cases that were initiated in 1994 but did not proceed to a trial ready list by July 1997. These are referred to as "non-trial ready cases." The non-trial ready data have a margin of sampling error of 5% for the statement of claim and application cases, and 10% for the divorce cases.
Findings
The main findings of the Ottawa study are presented below. When examining these results, the reader should keep in mind several important points. First, the study examined civil cases that were initiated in 1994, which is referred to throughout this article as the "reference year." The study tracked the progress of reference year civil cases until July 1997. The three and one-half year period between January 1994 and July 1997 is referred to as the "survey period." Also, it is important to note that reference year cases that were not disposed of by July 1997 were excluded from all analysis referring to completed cases.
Of the 10,843 civil cases initiated in Ottawa in 1994, 33% were initiated by statement of claim, 44% by application, and 23% by divorce petition. The statement of claim cases comprised debt collection (50%), contract (23%), malpractice (7%), motor vehicle (1%), and other civil matters (19%). Almost 80% of application cases concerned landlord and tenant matters.
Plaintiffs and Defendants
The study data help to illustrate the types of parties that sought dispute resolution in Ottawa's civil courts in 1994. They show that businesses comprised more than half (54%) of all plaintiffs in cases initiated by statement of claim. The remaining statement of claim cases were initiated by males (16%), females (16%), and by males and females (10%). Governments initiated 3.5% of statement of claim cases. Cases initiated by application showed a slightly different pattern. The difference between males and females filing applications was greater (21% male versus 3% female), and businesses initiated a higher proportion (63%) of cases. Governments initiated 10% of application cases. Divorce petitions were initiated by females in 58% of cases, by men in 31% of cases, and by men and women in 11% of cases.
To examine more closely litigation patterns between plaintiff and defendant in statement of claim cases, these data were cross-tabulated. The chart below highlights the most common litigant combinations representing 80% of all such cases. It shows that 30% of all statement of claim cases initiated in 1994 involved businesses in dispute with other businesses. Indeed, 72% of all statement of claim cases involved businesses as either plaintiff or defendant, or both. Other frequent litigant combinations included businesses versus males and females (9%), males versus businesses (9%), businesses versus males (8%), and females versus businesses (5%).
Chart 1: Plaintiffs vs Defendants for Statement of Claim Cases
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|
| Plaintiff By Defendant Business vs Female |
3 |
| Male vs Male | 3 |
| Female vs Male | 3 |
| Female vs Government | 3 |
| Female vs Male & Female | 3 |
| Male & Female vs Business | 4 |
| Female vs Business | 5 |
| Business vs Male | 8 |
| Male vs Business | 9 |
| Business vs Male & Female | 9 |
| Business vs Business | 30 |
80 |
|
Legal Representation
Data collected from the Ottawa court indicated that virtually all plaintiffs had legal representation at some point in the life of statement of claim and divorce cases. The exception was in application cases where only 60% of plaintiffs had legal representation in non-trial ready and trial ready cases. Only one application went to trial, and in this case, no legal representation was indicated.
The data showed some variability in defendant legal representation among case types. As with plaintiff legal representation, virtually all defendants had legal representation in statement of claim and divorce cases that proceeded to trial ready and trial. However, fewer than 60% of defendants had legal representation indicated in non-trial ready statement of claim cases, and fewer than 20% of defendants had legal representation in non-trial ready divorce cases. Again, applications showed significant variation with only 7% of defendants securing legal representation for non-trial ready application cases, and 40% with legal representation in trial ready application cases.
Trials
Because they are settled or abandoned, most civil cases never reach the trial ready or trial stage. For matters initiated by application in 1994, only 5 cases (0.1%) proceeded to the trial ready stage, and just one case (0.02%) went to trial during the entire survey period. In divorce matters, 1.5% of cases reached the trial ready stage and 0.3% proceeded to trial. Civil matters initiated by statement of claim displayed the highest rate of progression to trial ready and trial. During the survey period, 169 cases or 4.8% of total statement of claim cases initiated in 1994 reached the trial ready stage, while 38 cases (1.1%) went to trial.
Chart 2: Percentage of Cases that Reached Trial Ready and Trial
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| Chart 2 | Trial Ready | Trial |
| Application | 0.1 | 0 |
| Divorce | 1.5 | 0.3 |
| Statement of Claim | 4.8 | 1.1 |
Disposition Patterns
To be disposed of or completed, a case must be formally removed from the pending inventory of the court. The types of dispositions that can remove a case from a court's pending inventory include settled, discontinued, dismissed, default judgment, and final judgment. During the three and one-half year survey period, civil cases were disposed of at different rates. Just over 50% of statement of claim cases initiated in 1994 resulted in disposition during the survey period, compared to a 92% disposition rate for applications and a 94% disposition rate for divorce matters.
The way in which civil cases were disposed of varied by type of action. For instance, statement of claim cases were most likely to be disposed of through settlement (36%) or default judgment (30%). In contrast, applications and divorce cases were more likely to be disposed of by default or final judgment. For cases initiated in the 1994 reference year, 69% of applications and 63% of divorce cases were disposed of by default judgment.
Chart 3: Completed Cases By Type of Disposition
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| Chart 3 | Statement of Claim | Application | Divorce |
| Settle | 35.8 | 8.2 | 6.9 |
| Discontinue | 13.8 | 3.1 | 0 |
| Dismiss | 6.7 | 0.1 | 0 |
| Default Jud. | 30.3 | 69.3 | 63.4 |
| Judgment | 12.2 | 19.1 | 28.9 |
Judgments
Of the 10,843 civil cases initiated in the reference year, 61% resulted in some type of court judgment (default or final judgment) during the survey period. Most of these judgments were in favour of the plaintiff. For example, judgments in favour of plaintiffs were rendered in 84% of statement of claim cases, 99% of applications, and 91% of divorce matters. The majority of these judgments were rendered in non-trial ready cases, with most being default judgments in cases where the defendant did not file a defence. Judgments in favour of plaintiffs declined slightly in cases that proceeded to trial. Just under 80% of statement of claim trial judgments and 75% of divorce trial judgments were in favour of the plaintiff.
In some divorce cases, custody or maintenance issues were addressed as part of the judgment. Of the 419 divorce cases that included a custody judgment, 56% were for joint custody, 41% sole custody for the mother, and 0.7% sole custody for the father. Of the 421 divorce cases that included a maintenance judgment, 43% were for children only, while 40% were for both spouse and children. The remainder were for a spouse only.
Claims, Awards and Costs
For statement of claim cases disposed of during the survey period, median monetary awards were generally less than median claims. In non-trial ready cases, the median claim was $50,000 compared to a median award of $28,900. In contrast, the median claim in trial ready and trial cases was around $80,000 compared to median awards in the $30,000 range. It is interesting to note that the median award for cases that proceeded to trial was no higher than for cases that were disposed of at the non-trial ready stage. On the other hand, court costs rose as the case progressed further through the civil process. They ranged from $308 for non-trial ready cases to $10,000 for trial cases. Application cases, which are dominated by landlord and tenant matters, were far more likely to obtain awards that were comparable to original claims. For applications disposed of during the survey period, the median claim was for $767 compared to a median award of $740. Median costs in application cases were $125.
Chart 4: Statement of Claim Cases By Median Claim, Award, and Costs
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| Chart 4 | Non-Trial Ready | Trial Ready | Trial |
| Median Claim | 50,000 | 86,207 | 80,055 |
| Median Award | 28,920 | 33,500 | 28,939 |
| Costs | 308 | 4,750 | 10,000 |
Case Processing
Calculating case elapsed times permits analysis of the amount of time required for cases to reach various points in the civil process. In Ottawa, the elapsed times for different case types depended on how far they proceeded in the civil process. For instance, the median elapsed time, from start date to end date, for all non-trial ready statement of claim cases was 160 days compared to an elapsed time of 83 days for all completed divorce cases. However, cases that proceeded to trial had much longer elapsed times. The median elapsed time from start date to trial ready date was 415 days for statement of claim cases, and 434 days for divorce cases. The median elapsed time from trial ready date to trial date was 329 days for statement of claim cases and 227 for divorce cases. The overall elapsed time from start date to end date was 800 days for statement of claim cases, and 644 days for divorce matters.
Chart 5: Elapsed Time By Process Points
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| Chart 5 | Divorce | Statement of Claim |
| Start Date To Trial Ready Date | 434 | 415 |
| Trial Ready Date To Trial Date | 227 | 329 |
| Start Date toTrial Date | 644 | 780 |
| Start Date to End Date | 644 | 800 |
The Ottawa data also showed variation among different subject areas within case types. For statement of claim cases that reached the trial ready stage during the survey period, malpractice cases had the shortest median elapsed time (696 days), while trial ready motor vehicle cases had the longest median elapsed time (890 days). Even more variation was evident among cases that went to trial. The median elapsed time for malpractice trial cases (1,206 days) was almost twice as long as the median elapsed time for debt collection cases (682 days).
Conclusions
The data presented here allow an exploration of case processing and disposition patterns for different types of subject matter and litigants that come to court. In doing so, they offer a brief demonstration of some of the analytic possibilities in the civil justice area.Further information can be found in the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics Civil Courts Study Report, 1999, Catalogue no. 85-549-XIE.