San Francisco Superior Court at 850 Bryant Street with posted notices annoucing many offices within the building closed in compliance with the shelter in place order. Photo: Jason Doiy/ALM

As COVID-19 court closures that took hold in the last two weeks of March—the last two weeks of the first quarter of the year—led to a dramatic drop in the number of new civil filings seen in three major San Francisco Bay Area courts. 

According to data provided by Superior Court officials in Alameda, Santa Clara and San Francisco Counties, noncriminal filings were down significantly for the first three months of 2020 compared to the same period last year.

In San Francisco Superior Court, total filings fell off from 6,310 in the first quarter of 2019 to 5,506 during the same period this year, a 12.7% drop. 

In Santa Clara Superior, total noncriminal case filings dropped by nearly 14%, from 10,586 in the first quarter of 2019 to 9,109 in the same period of 2020. Civil filings in Santa Clara dropped even more precipitously, falling by 16.6% from 6,640 to 5,535 year-over-year. 

In Alameda County Superior, noncriminal filings excluding appeals fell off by 9.7% from 10,767 in the first quarter of 2019 to 9,719 over the same period in 2020. (Editor's note: Alameda court's data for appeals has been excluded since those numbers did not include filings from March 2020.) The number of unlimited civil filings in Alameda County fell off by nearly 12%, from 2,443 to 2,157 year-over-year.  

While the falloff from Q1 2019 to Q1 2020 was dramatic, litigators say that having the state courts limited to only the most urgent civil filings will lead to an even steeper dropoff in the numbers for the second quarter. 

"The percentage of filings being down right now is irrelevant to the overall impact on attorneys and their clients," says Micha Star Liberty of the Liberty Law Office in Oakland. "The 30,000 food view is that an entire branch of government has been unable to effectively function at even a minimal level on the civil side." 

Liberty, the current president of the Consumer Attorneys of California, the plaintiffs bar's largest statewide membership organization, said that it is "shocking and dismaying" that the court system "at the heart of technology and innovation" has been brought to a crawl by the limitations imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. "There are some judges who are keeping up and doing what they can remotely," she said. "The struggle is to get the presiding judges in all of the counties and the judicial council to work together," she said. 

The Judicial Council last month used new powers granted by the Gov. Gavin Newsom to adopt emergency statewide rules that the CAOC and other groups asked for stopping the clock on civil matters filed between April 6 and 90 days after the governor lifts the state of emergency related to COVID-19. The Judicial Council has since taken additional steps to help keep civil suits on track in the state including allowing parties represented by counsel to be served electronically, forgoing the need for in-person service.

Even with those steps, lawyers with active state court dockets are setting trial dates and hearing dates pushed back. Most expect courtrooms to be dedicated to criminal proceedings in the near-term and a significant civil backlog, especially as cases related to the COVID-19 pandemic itself start hitting the dockets.

Morrison & Foerster's Arturo Gonzalez said that given the tolling of the statute of limitations, and the financial hardship many people and companies are experiencing, there is no urgency to filing legal actions at this time. "However, there will likely be a flood of lawsuits later this year when the tolling is lifted, including commercial unlawful detainers," he said. 

Warren Metlitzky, a founding partner of San Francisco trial boutique Conrad & Metlitzky, said he expects the volume of COVID-19 related litigation is going to surprise some. "Is there anyone who has a commercial contract or employment contract that wasn't affected by this?" Metlitzky said. 

Although he said not all those affected contracts will or should lead to litigation, the act there are "a bunch of people who are struggling and looking for ways to get money—that leads to lawsuits." 

Metlitzky said, "When times are hard, I wouldn't be surprised to see filings go up."