Research · California
California court filings by county: where the cases are
California’s superior courts had 1,037,118 new civil cases filed in fiscal year 2024–25, up from 886,644 the year before. Los Angeles County alone had 309,615 of them. Here is where each kind of case is filed, county by county.
What does it show?
- A few counties hold most of the work. The five biggest counties hold 60.6% of all civil filings in the state, led by Los Angeles (309,615), Sacramento (106,108), Orange (74,405), San Diego (71,521), San Bernardino (67,231).
- Motor-vehicle injury cases are even more concentrated. Los Angeles County had 21,566 of the state’s 49,326, which is 43.7%.
- Other injury and wrongful death cases rose sharply. They went from 40,544 to 59,077. Los Angeles and San Diego together had 39,074. Most of the rise is one court: San Diego County went from 2,196 to 12,523, while its “other civil complaints and petitions” fell from 17,194 to 8,247. The two together barely moved (19,390 to 20,770), which points to a change in how that court labels cases. The Council’s tables print these numbers as shown and give no reason, so treat the San Diego change as a counting shift, not a surge of injury cases.
- Evictions went the other way. Unlawful detainer filings went from 135,793 to 128,894.
- Family law is the biggest non-civil group after criminal: 310,579 filings, 194,346 of the criminal filings were felonies.
Which counties file the most of each kind?
| Case type | Statewide | Top five counties | Their share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Motor-vehicle injury and wrongful death (unlimited civil) | 49,326 | Los Angeles 21,566, Orange 3,922, San Bernardino 2,774, San Diego 2,755, Riverside 2,307 | 67.6% |
| Other injury and wrongful death (unlimited civil) | 59,077 | Los Angeles 26,551, San Diego 12,523, Ventura 2,788, Orange 2,610, Alameda 2,197 | 79% |
| Evictions (unlawful detainer) | 128,894 | Los Angeles 41,059, Orange 9,188, San Bernardino 9,010, San Diego 8,922, Sacramento 7,929 | 59% |
| Family law | 310,579 | Los Angeles 82,712, San Diego 25,131, San Bernardino 22,314, Riverside 22,145, Orange 21,048 | 55.8% |
| Felonies | 194,346 | Los Angeles 34,275, Riverside 17,483, Orange 14,696, San Bernardino 13,774, San Diego 13,097 | 48% |
| Probate | 66,908 | Los Angeles 18,304, San Bernardino 4,568, Riverside 4,565, Orange 4,336, San Diego 3,668 | 53% |
Source: Judicial Council of California, 2026 Court Statistics Report, Appendix G county tables. All 58 counties, both years and every case type are in the California court filings dataset (CSV, JSON, API and MCP).
Questions
Where are most California car-crash and other motor-vehicle injury cases filed?
49,326 unlimited civil motor-vehicle injury, property damage and wrongful death cases were filed statewide in fiscal year 2024–25. The five biggest counties (Los Angeles 21,566, Orange 3,922, San Bernardino 2,774, San Diego 2,755, Riverside 2,307) held 67.6% of them.
Does a filing count mean demand for lawyers?
It is the closest public count of new disputes by county, but it is a count of cases opened in court, not people. Many people never file, and many cases settle before filing.
Where does the data come from?
From the Judicial Council of California’s Court Statistics Reports (the 2026 report for fiscal year 2024–25 and the 2025 report for 2023–24), county tables in Appendix G. In every table the 58 counties add up exactly to the report’s statewide row.
Cite this as: Probative. (2026). California court filings by county: civil, criminal, family, juvenile, probate and appeals, fiscal years 2023–24 and 2024–25 (Version 1.0.0) [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23658524 Download the files. Free under CC BY 4.0.
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