California's High Court Is The Most Influential State Court
A new study found that California's high court is the most influential state court in the nation, based on a tabulation of how many times individual state court decisions were followed by other courts. The study, published in the University of California, Davis law review, analyzed decisions for the last 65 years up to 2005 and found that more than 24,000 state high court cases have been followed at least once.
California leads with 1,260 decisions. Washington is next, with 942, and Colorado is third, with 848. New York comes in 10th and is only about half as influential as California, with 627 followed cases. One reason for California's primacy, according to Missouri Supreme Court Judge Michael A. Wolff, is that the California court has been “out in front in emerging theories of liability.”