Mr. ROONEY. Of course, it may not be fair to lump them together that way, both filed and terminated cases, but for the purpose of the discussion I think it is fair.

Mr. GARY. Mr. Chairman, may I ask one question?

Mr. STEFAN. Off the record. (Discussion off the record.)

Mr. STEFAN. Go ahead.

Mr. GARY. These figures would indicate that there is a backlog of 17,500 cases in the courts at the present time and that is very serious.

Mr. STEFAN. He is going to have put in the record his docket from each district showing the condition of each district up to date. Mr. CHANDLER. That is right..

Mr. STEFAN. We will also put in the record following that the case load which this committee requested of you last year. Put in the record, Mr. Chandler, a statement or break-down showing expenditures for the operations of the United States courts, exclusive of the Supreme Court, for the fiscal years 1942 to 1946, inclusive, and the estimated obligations for the fiscal year 1947. Will you put that in the record?

Mr. CHANDLER. Yes, sir; will you give me the page where we did that last year?

Mr. STEFAN. That is on page 16 of last year's report.

Mr. CHANDLER. Thank you.

(The matter referred to is as follows:)

Cases per judgeship 1-Showing number of civil and criminal cases commenced in all United States district courts during the fiscal year 1946

1 The number of cases is perhaps the best single indication of the work of courts that there is and it is universally used in systems of judicial statistics for want of anything better. But cases vary so widely in the time and effort required for disposition that the number taken alone is far from a reliable or sufficient criterion. It is not a sound basis for measuring the work of different courts or judges without knowledge of many other pertinent factors which it is not practicable to show in a table.

Where a judgeship exists which covers more than one district, as for example, the eastern and western districts of South Carolina, a fractional part of a judgeship is credited in column 1 to each district. This frequently does not correspond with the actual apportionment of the work of the judge between the districts, but this office does not have the data which would be requisite to indicate accurately that factor.

Cases per judgeship-Showing number of civil and criminal cases commenced in all United States district courts during the fiscal year 1946—Continued

Cases per judgeship-Showing number of civil and criminal cases commenced in all
United States district courts during the fiscal year 1946-Continued

Statement showing expenditures for operation of the United States courts (exclusive of the Supreme Court) for the fiscal years 1941 to 1946, inclusive, and the estimated obligations, fiscal year 1947

Total..

10, 935, 094 11, 231, 397 11, 516, 830 12, 399, 427 12, 275, 602 14, 272, 338 17,084, 100

OPA CASES

Mr. STEFAN. Is it possible, as has been reported, that if OPA is liquidated no further OPA cases will be tried?

Mr. CHANDLER. No; that is not the fact because there will be causes of action which will last for some time.

Mr. STEFAN. What is the number of those cases, if it can be determined?

Mr. CHANDLER. I can give you the number of OPA cases. (The matter requested follows:)

Number of OPA cases pending in all United States district courts, June 30, 1946

Mr. STEFAN. Off the record.

(Discussion off the record.)

VOLUME OF WORK, FEDERAL COURTS

Mr. CHANDLER. I would like to make this one observation, that while the number of cases is an element to be taken into account, the nature of the cases from time to time has a very important bearing upon the volume of the work of the courts, and one cannot draw reliable conclusions from the number of cases alone.

From my contact with the judges in the district courts around the country and the courts of appeals, I find they are working very diligently and I am satisfied that the courts are busy.

Mr. GARY. I am not disputing that. It looks to me like they are too busy. As I figure it out, on the cases filed and terminated you had 700 cases in 1943 that were not terminated. You had 1,400 cases filed in 1944 that were not terminated. You had 8,600 cases in 1945 that were not terminated and you had approximately 6,800 cases filed in 1946 that were not terminated, making a total of 17,500 cases that have not been terminataed, according to those figures.

Mr. CHANDLER. The cases that were pending at an earlier period have been disposed of and other cases would be listed in the "Pending cases" later.

Let me say this: To a certain extent there is a favorable element in that, and that is this, that price-regulation cases on the whole do not take a large amount of time of the court. The large volume of price cases has led to an increase in the number of civil cases filed, a very sharp increase, and it will take a short time for the courts to terminate them, but those cases will really disappear in a comparatively short time.

Prior to the sharp increase in civil cases filed during the war the courts were disposing annually of somewhat more civil cases than were filed. It seems reasonable to expect that generally this will be true again after the war influx of Government civil cases, mainly price cases, passes. And as I have stated experience shows that disposition of the pending price cases which now swell the civil dockets, will not take a proportionately large amount of time of the courts.

A pretty good index, it seems to me, and one which I have set out in my statement as to the rate of dispatch of cases, is the time it takes for parties to secure a trial in a case they want to have tried. The average time for the disposition of cases in the district courts, the median time, I should say, for the disposition of cases in the district courts that were tried in 1946, cases of the normal types-barring some that were extraordinary like reorganizations that went on and on-the median time was 9.8 months and the median time for disposition of the cases in the courts of appeals was 6.8 months, so that I think if you would go into the various districts and ask lawyers who are practicing at the bar if they could get a reasonably prompt trial, they would tell you that they could.

There are some districts in which that is. not true and, with full respect for the District Court for the Southern District of New York, I will have to say that because the court does not have the number of resident judges that it needs, it has fallen behind. The District Court for the District of New Jersey is falling behind. We have said