How Productive Is the California Supreme Court?

Undoubtedly there are different metrics for determining how “productive” a branch of state government is. For example, for the legislative branch, how many bills do they process each year? For the executive branch, how many individuals or businesses are licensed and regulated each year? For the judicial branch, how many cases are processed in our state’s trial courts?

I came across an interesting listing of the published decisions of our state’s high court over the past two decades. Although quality is more important than quantity, particularly when it comes to judicial decisions by our state’s appellate courts, the following listing (by calendar year and number of written decisions issued by the California Supreme Court) is of interest:

2022 – 57 written decisions

2021 – 63 written decisions

2020 – 79 written decisions

2019 – 82 written decisions

2018 – 97 written decisions

2017 – 94 written decisions

2016 – 94 written decisions

2015 – 81 written decisions

2014 – 88 written decisions

2013 – 92 written decisions

2012 – 110 written decisions

2011 – 91 written decisions

2010 – 123 written decisions

2009 – 115 written decisions

2008 – 94 written decisions

2007 – 123 written decisions

2006 – 124 written decisions

2005 – 124 written decisions

2004 – 135 written decisions

2003 – 131 written decisions

2002 – 130 written decisions

Legal commentators have written about possible reasons for the reduced number of written decisions in recent years by the California Supreme Court. Again, the quality of the written decision and its precedential impact is more important than the sheer volume of written decisions that are released each year, but it is noteworthy that, prior to the past decade, the state’s high court consistently released over 100 written decisions each year. But that number has been reduced substantially in the past decade.