Bucks Writs - Summer 2018 - 18

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JUDGE BALDI:
CIVIL CASE
MANAGEMENT UPDATE
- By Susan E. Dardes

I always get the plum tasks for the Writs, and my recent
interview was no exception.

for Court Administration and the Prothonotary. The new
starting point then became January 1, 2013, with a case
load of 13,499 pending and "older than 2 years." Judge
Baldi provided me with a statistical overview
of all civil cases filed and where applicable,
disposed of, in the Court of Common Pleas
from 2013 - 2017.

I had a chance, albeit a brief one, to visit with Judge
Robert Baldi, in his chambers, to discuss how
the County is progressing with its backlog of
civil cases. The short answer is that there
really is not much of a backlog at this point,
but the longer story is that an extraordinary
effort went into this backlog reduction.

Despite the existence of Bucks County
Local Rule *261 which allows litigants,
without the intervention of a Judge, to
Appointed to the Bucks County bench by
have their case placed on the trial list, many
Governor Ed Rendell in July 2009, Judge Baldi
cases linger on for years. Judge Baldi contends
was elected to his first full term in November
the large backlog was due to the
of that year. President Judge Finley
attorneys and litigants, not the Court
Bucks
County
had
one
of
appointed him to be the Adminthe highest civil backlogs in system. He pointed out that historiistrative Judge of our Civil Court
cally once a case is certified as ready
division in 2012, whereupon he was
the Commonwealth. As of
for trial the case is generally given a
told that Bucks County had one
January 1, 2013, there was a trial date within six to eight weeks.
of the highest civil backlogs in the
case load of 13,499 pending We had a situation where in theory
Commonwealth. More than half of
Court intervention was not necessary,
the counties in Pennsylvania, it was
and "older than 2 years."
but none the less a significant backlog
discovered, had more than ¼ of their
As
of
December
31,
2017,
developed. But lawyers get busy,
civil inventory aged at over two years,
Bucks County has reduced clients gets obdurate, other priorities
and Bucks was one of those counties.
take over, and the tendency to
The Chief Justice of the Pennsylvania
its pending civil case load to litigate continues. And, there were
Supreme Court personally spoke to
5,209 cases, with no more than a significant number of cases which
Judge Finley about this, delivering an
23.6% aged over two years. were incorrectly labeled with the
admonishment that the situation was
wrong year of filing or not marked
unacceptable and needed reconciling.
as "settled" when, in fact, they had
been settled. Some were also improperly classified as a civil
Judge Baldi's first response was to meet with Court
"action" - a contract or tort claim - when they were, in
Administration and Prothonotary staff to assist him in
reality, a civil "other" case, such as a mechanic's lien or an
developing a plan to reduce the backlog. In this endeavor,
execution on a district justice's judgement. So it became
the Judge determined that the 2012 statistics were
everyone's task to fix.
flawed, which in turn, had generated inaccurate reports
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Bucks Writs - Summer 2018