NCJ Number
125505
Journal
Law and Society Review Volume: 24 Issue: 2 Dated: (1990) Pages: 283-298
Date Published
1990
Length
16 pages
Annotation
This article tests the usefulness of some aspects of functional theory in explaining the relationship between socioeconomic development and litigation trends in Belgium for 1835-1980.
Abstract
Litigation rates were used as the dependent variable (the total number of civil cases handled by each court per 1,000 population) instead of the absolute number of cases. Because there are few statistics on the economic development of pre-World War II Belgium, this study used two measures of the period from 1835 to World War II -- the production of iron and coal -- and another to study the postwar period -- the production of electricity. Other independent variables included the number of bankruptcies per 100,000 population, the level of education, and the number of attorneys and magistrates. The analysis examined whether the effect of industrialization is curvilinear, the effect of the growth of industrialization on litigation rates, the effect of business failure on litigation rates, the level of education and the evolution of litigation rates, and the relationship of litigation rates to the number of attorneys and magistrates. Functional theory predicts that litigation rates will rise during periods of economic instability (either growth or decline), because a range of relationships will be affected by the changes that accompany instability. Some of the hypotheses derived from functional theory were supported by the data, but others were not. The analysis indicates that socioeconomic development is only one factor in a myriad of factors impacting the litigation rate. 1 figure, 4 tables.