Many of the states that are hardest hit by coronavirus—New York, Washington, California, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Florida—are also home to some of the most overburdened federal courts in the country. Several different but related factors contribute to that caseload crisis, according to an article on Law360.com, a website that covers the news in the legal field.

As Cara Bayles of Law360 noted, “First is the sheer number and complexity of filings. States that are home to many tech companies, like California, or many pharmaceutical companies, like New Jersey, might see a lot of intellectual property cases with reams and reams of paper. In border states like Texas and Arizona, immigration cases overwhelm the courts, especially under a Trump administration policy that charges undocumented immigrants with criminal illegal entry.”

Bayles points out that the federal judiciary regularly analyzes the docket of each district for complexity. The result is then divided by the number of judgeships allotted to the district, yielding “weighted caseloads.”
The benchmark of 430 weighted cases is considered a manageable docket, Bayles said. New Jersey has more than twice as many cases, with 1,044 per judgeship. Louisiana's Eastern District has the highest weighted caseload, with an average of 1,200 per judge.

“Other factors can exacerbate that problem. While filings have climbed, the number of judges on the bench has stagnated. Congress has not passed a large-scale judgeship bill since 1990, when 69 permanent district court positions were created. Since then, judgeships have inched up by about 4 percent, while filings have increased by at least 38 percent,” Bayles observed.

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