Civil litigation statistics show a large and varied system: U.S. district courts recorded 347,991 civil filings in the 12 months ending March 31, 2024, while state-court trial statistics from 2005 show how often plaintiffs won and what awards looked like. The figures below cover federal caseloads, cases involving the United States, U.S. Attorneys’ civil work, and older state-court trial data. Measurement periods and geography matter, so the 2005 state figures should not be read as current national estimates.
Contents
- Federal civil caseload
- Federal jurisdiction and case types
- Cases involving the United States
- U.S. Attorneys’ civil litigation workload
- Causes of action and dispositions
- State-court trials and awards
Federal civil caseload
In the 12 months ending March 31, 2024, U.S. district courts recorded 347,991 civil case filings, terminated 298,371 civil cases, and had 633,066 civil cases pending. These are national federal district-court totals reported in the Federal Judicial Caseload Statistics 2024.
Compared with the prior 12-month period, civil filings rose 22%, an increase of 63,771 cases. Civil terminations fell 12%, while pending civil cases increased 8%. The combination of more filings and fewer terminations helps explain why the pending inventory grew during this measurement period.
The federal district-court workload also includes criminal defendants. Combined civil-case and criminal-defendant filings totaled 414,026 in the same 12 months, and combined terminations totaled 370,225. Combined civil cases and criminal defendants pending rose 6% to 746,577.
One large multidistrict litigation contributed substantially to the filing total: more than 57,600 3M Combat Arms earplug multidistrict-litigation cases were filed directly in a single district during the period. That figure is a case count reported in the federal caseload statistics, not a measure of the number of separate trials or decisions.
Federal jurisdiction and case types
Federal civil filings can be grouped by jurisdictional basis and subject matter. Diversity-of-citizenship civil filings rose 46% to 159,732 in the 12 months ending March 31, 2024. Federal-question civil filings grew 8% to 142,424.
The largest reported subject-matter movements included personal-injury and product-liability litigation. Those filings increased 78%, or 46,809 cases. Health-care and pharmaceutical civil filings increased 98%, or 16,694 cases. Other personal-injury filings rose 30% to 9,406 cases.
| Federal civil category | Reported result | Measurement period |
|---|---|---|
| Diversity-of-citizenship filings | 159,732; up 46% | 12 months ending March 31, 2024 |
| Federal-question filings | 142,424; up 8% | 12 months ending March 31, 2024 |
| Other personal-injury filings | 9,406; up 30% | 12 months ending March 31, 2024 |
| Defend Trade Secrets Act filings | 637; up 13% | 12 months ending March 31, 2024 |
Civil-rights filings in the federal-question category increased 13%, including a 21% increase in employment cases. Prison-condition petitions rose 15% to 10,644, while habeas-corpus-relief petitions fell 5% in the federal-question category.
Intellectual-property filings also moved upward. Copyright filings increased 23%, and Defend Trade Secrets Act filings grew 13% to 637 cases. These percentages describe changes in reported federal filings; they do not establish why the changes occurred or predict how any individual case will end.
Cases involving the United States
The federal statistics separately report cases in which the United States was a defendant or plaintiff. Civil cases naming the United States as defendant increased 6% to 42,790 in the 12 months ending March 31, 2024. Other immigration actions naming the United States as defendant rose 24% to 11,523 cases.
Civil-rights cases naming the United States as defendant increased 22% to 1,602. By contrast, disability-insurance Social Security cases naming the United States as defendant fell 3% to 7,336.
The United States was also the plaintiff in civil cases. Those cases increased 4% to 3,040. Civil-rights cases with the United States as plaintiff rose 39% to 235, and Fair Labor Standards Act filings with the United States as plaintiff increased 22%. Securities, commodities, and exchanges cases with the United States as plaintiff declined 14% to 243.
These categories describe the United States’ role as a party, not a general win rate for the government. The federal caseload report does not make the plaintiff and defendant counts interchangeable with all civil filings.
U.S. Attorneys’ civil litigation workload
The Fiscal Year 2024 United States Attorneys’ Annual Statistical Report covers a different reporting system and period. U.S. Attorneys’ Offices began fiscal year 2024 with 84,820 pending civil cases and ended it with 87,646. They filed 81,763 civil cases during the fiscal year and terminated 72,272.
The report also counts civil matters that may not yet have reached court. U.S. Attorneys’ Offices received 87,769 civil matters during fiscal year 2024, including proceedings not yet in court that consumed at least one hour of attorney time. This broader matters measure should not be treated as the same thing as civil case filings in federal district courts.
Trial activity was a small, specifically reported part of that workload. U.S. Attorneys’ Offices reported 668 court trials and 196 jury trials in civil cases during fiscal year 2024. The report’s categories distinguish court trials from jury trials, so the figures should be retained as separate counts rather than added into a general trial-success rate.
Causes of action and dispositions
The U.S. Attorneys’ report provides more detail about the government’s civil causes of action and case outcomes. Cases involving the United States as plaintiff included 1,846 pending commercial-litigation cases at the end of fiscal year 2024. The United States as plaintiff filed 1,072 fraud cases and 1,767 tort cases during the fiscal year. It terminated 807 fraud cases.
Cases involving the United States as defendant included 22,702 pending commercial-litigation cases at the end of fiscal year 2024. The United States as defendant terminated 18,008 commercial-litigation cases. It also had 17,715 pending prisoner-litigation cases and terminated 12,723 Social Security cases and 2,584 tort cases during the fiscal year.
Disposition counts show several different ways a case can end:
- The United States prevailed by judgment in 19,450 civil cases handled by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices during fiscal year 2024.
- Civil settlements produced 6,597 dispositions.
- Judgments against the United States accounted for 8,542 dispositions.
- Civil cases were dismissed 14,865 times.
- Other dispositions totaled 22,818.
These figures are counts of reported dispositions, not percentages of every case filed. They also should not be combined into a single win-rate calculation without a defined denominator and complete matching case population.
State-court trials and awards
The Civil Bench and Jury Trials in State Courts, 2005 report describes approximately 26,950 general civil cases disposed of through a bench or jury trial in state courts of general jurisdiction in 2005. This is an older state-court measurement, not a forecast or a current nationwide trial total.
Tort claims comprised 61% of general civil bench and jury trials in 2005. Motor-vehicle-accident cases accounted for 35% of all general civil trials, while contract cases accounted for 33%.
Plaintiffs won 56% of general civil trials. The result differed by trial type: plaintiffs won 68% of civil bench trials and 54% of civil jury trials.
| State-court 2005 measure | Reported figure |
|---|---|
| General civil bench or jury trials | Approximately 26,950 |
| Trials involving tort claims | 61% |
| Motor-vehicle-accident trials | 35% of all general civil trials |
| Contract trials | 33% of all general civil trials |
| Plaintiff win rate, all general civil trials | 56% |
| Plaintiff win rate, bench trials | 68% |
| Plaintiff win rate, jury trials | 54% |
Plaintiff winners received an estimated $6 billion in compensatory and punitive damages in those 2005 state-court civil trials. The median final award among plaintiff winners was $28,000. More than 14% of state-court civil-trial plaintiff winners received awards exceeding $250,000.
Punitive damages were less common than compensatory awards. About 5% of state-court civil trials with plaintiff winners awarded punitive damages, totaling approximately 700 trials. The median punitive-damage award among those trials was $64,000. Because these figures come from 2005, they should be used to understand the reported historical distribution of trial outcomes rather than to estimate what a current case will recover.