TRAC-Reports
Federal Government Civil Filings Rebound After the Shutdown
(28 Mar 2019) The latest available data from the federal courts for February 2019 show that the number of civil suits filed by the U.S. government has rebounded from their depressed levels during the federal government partial shutdown. The number of federal civil suits where the U.S. government was recorded as the plaintiff during February was 285. This is roughly the same number that the courts received during October and the month of November 2018 before the shutdown began.

Compared with the 285 suits filed during February, only 190 were initiated by the government during January 2019 at the height of the shutdown. These findings are based on case-by-case court records analyzed by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University.

Currently available information does not pinpoint exactly which types of suits may have been most impacted by the shutdown. Even absent a shutdown, the composition of civil litigation initiated in the federal courts by the government can vary from month to month. Some suits are preceded by lengthy investigations, while others go quickly from consideration to filing. The data do suggest that some categories of litigation falling under a miscellaneous list the court labels as "Other Statutes" may have been most affected.

For further details, see:

http://trac.syr.edu/tracreports/civil/553/

Each month, TRAC offers a report focused on one area of civil litigation in the U.S. district courts. In addition, subscribers to the TRACFed data service can generate custom reports by district, office, nature of suit or federal jurisdiction with data updated through February 2019. To start, go to:

http://trac.syr.edu/interpreter?tab=civil

If you want to be sure to receive notification whenever updated data become available, sign up at:

http://tracfed.syr.edu/cgi-bin/tracuser.pl?pub=1

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TRAC is self-supporting and depends on foundation grants, individual contributions and subscription fees for the funding needed to obtain, analyze and publish the data we collect on the activities of the US Federal government. To help support TRAC's ongoing efforts, go to:

http://trac.syr.edu/cgi-bin/sponsor/sponsor.pl

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