Saturday, July 21, 2007

A Record Pace for Civil Lawsuit Filings

For good or ill, the filing of civil lawsuits is on the upswing. (See here and here.) Between January and June of 2007, 9,522 civil lawsuits were filed in Tulsa County District Court. For the same time last year, only 8,077 civil lawsuits were filed. According to the article, a large portion of the increase was due to the filing of lawsuits requesting money damages not exceeding $10,000.00. There was a only a modest increase in the number of lawsuits requesting more than $10,000.00 in damages. The article, which quotes Judge Russell Hass, indicates that part of the increase may relate to migration of small claims to the middle tier docket. Others blame the recent bankruptcy reform laws, which have apparently made it more likely that debtors will be sued. The article indicates that Tulsa County's record for total number of cases filed (in one year) was in 2003, when 17,082 civil lawsuits were filed.

The website for the Tulsa County District Court can be found here. You can search the Tulsa County District Court Docket here.

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