The treatment the Supreme Court accorded the court whose decision it reviewed is contained in this variable; e.g., affirmed, vacated, reversed and remanded, etc. The values here are the same as those for lcDisposition (how the court whose decision the Supreme Court reviewed disposed of the case). For original jurisdiction cases, this variable will be empty unless the Court’s disposition falls under 1 or 9 below (stay, petition, or motion granted; petition denied or appeal dismissed). For cases in which the Court granted a motion to dismiss, caseDisposition is coded as 9 (petition denied or appeal dismissed). There is “no disposition” if the Court denied a motion to dismiss.

The information relevant to this variable may be found near the end of the summary that begins on the title page of each case, or preferably at the very end of the opinion of the Court.

As in the lcDisposition variable, the value label pertaining to the specific language used by the Court is entered. If incongruence between the Court’s language and the above codes occurs, consult variable caseDispositionUnusual.

In cases containing multiple docket numbers, not every docket number will necessarily receive the same disposition. Hence, in focusing on the outcome of the Court’s decisions, users might want to consider the datasets in which cases are organized by docket rather than citation.

Note for users of the Justice Centered Database: The entry in this variable governs whether the individual justices voted with the majority or in dissent.