A special commission appointed to study the Supreme Court's workload will find by most measures the court's burden has risen significantly in the past 10 years, according to statistics from the State Courts Administrator's office. But compared with other top state courts around the country, the Florida court is busy, but not nearly the busiest, according to some national data. The legislature created the nine-member panel to look at the court's workload after another bill, which would have sent to voters a constitutional amendment to increase the court's size by two, bogged down and appeared unlikely to pass. The statistics show mostly, but not entirely, upward trends.
Mandatory reviews are actually lower, but discretionary reviews have risen markedly.
Higher too are the actions where the court hears the matter as an original proceeding. That's a 43-percent increase. Dispositions have also shown a more or less steady increase, going from 1,846 in 1990 to 2,516 in 1999, a 36-percent rise. Pending cases have gone from 970 in 1990 to 1,328 in 1999, a 37 percent hike. Interestingly, the entire rise in workload is due to orders, and the number of opinions issued by the court has been decreasing.