effect scrutiny when evaluating occurrences that may have system-wide impact and points to pockets of data that are ripe for more targeted study. Filings Analysis
Figure 1. Total class action cases filed,2 by year, as reported by the twelve courts in the study3 Study courts reported a total of 3,711 class action cases filed between 2000 and 2005. Filings steadily increased by 81% in the first five years of the study. However, the number of filings fell 9.8% between 2004 and 2005, the only decrease seen during the period. This decrease may be attributable to changes in standing requirements instituted by the passage of the Class Action Fairness Act in February of 2005. CAFA broadened the scope of cases eligible for federal court and may have led to a decrease in state filings and an increase in original filings in the federal jurisdiction. (For further discussion of CAFA, see page 23, below.) However, the number of filings in 2004 2
Missing data points were extrapolated by substituting the average yearly filings for the individual court. Before inclusion in the total filing figure, each court‘s reported total filings were dampened by the rate of false positive cases found in the individual court. The statewide average false positive rate was 22.2% of all cases identified as ―class action‖ on the Civil Case Cover Sheet. This rate is high because often the ―class action?‖ selection box on the cover sheet was marked in cases that simply were not class actions. In addition, the differences across case management systems led to variable accuracy in the initial search query. The highest false positive rate in a single court was 71% and the lowest was 6%. Figure 2, below, does not include filings for 2006 as the data from this year were incomplete and included only a half-year of information. 3 Study courts include the Superior Court of California, Counties of Alameda, Contra Costa, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Sonoma, and Ventura. These filing figures represent the total number of class action filings reported by the court. The case-file reviews were sampled from these filings. The twelve study courts account for 75.2% of all statewide unlimited civil filings.
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