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.

Football and the Courts

There was interesting article in the Tulsa World today (here and here), wherein the world of grade school football (yes, grade school football) intersected with the state and federal court system. A third grade football player and his father sought a court order forcing the Indian Nations Football Conference to allow the boy to enter the third-grade football draft or, alternatively, to hold the draft until the question of the child's residency could be settled. The child and his family live in the Union school district, but had made plans to move into the Jenks school district. The lawsuit apparently had a unique sense of urgency because the draft is scheduled for Sunday, July 22, 2007.

The boy and his father initially filed their petition in state court (to be heard by District Judge Gordon McAllister). They had also requested an emergency restraining order. However, the Indian Nations Football Conference filed a Notice of Removal, requesting that a federal judge hear the case. The conference argued that the plaintiffs were pursing a federal claim under 42 U.S.C. sec. 1983.

The federal case was initially assigned to Judge G. Frizzell, but, because of a conflict, the case was re-assigned to Judge C. Eagan. The case did not last long in federal court. In a sua sponte Order, Judge Eagan remanded the case back to state court. The Court found that the plaintiff had not pursued a federal claim in his petition. The plaintiffs' counsel had apparently informally told the defendant that he planned to file a claim under the 14th Amendment. However, the Court found this oral statement between counsel insufficient for purposes of federal question subject matter jurisdiction. "[A]n intent to revise a petition does not meet the 'face of the well-pleaded complaint rule.'"

The remand order sent the case back to state court, where both sides appeared before Judge McAllister. Judge McAllister apparently urged the parties to work out an agreement. And they did. The boy will be placed into a "blind draft" to determine which Jenks team he will be on, and his family must move into a house in the Jenks district. According to the article, the football conference, which includes Jenks, Union and 29 other districts, requires players to live in the districts in which they are playing. The rule is in place to prevent recuiting.