Pandemic-Driven Civil Case Backlog Clears Slowly in Ohio Courts

Two years after the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic, Hamilton County, Ohio, is still digging itself out of a backlog of pending civil cases.

Every time the county—home of Cincinnati—tried to bring back jury trials, “Covid would flare back up,” Christopher A. Wagner, administrative judge for its Common Pleas Court, said of the height of the pandemic. “So we tried to bring back juries and we had to stop them. We brought them back again, and then we had to stop them.”

Hamilton County isn’t alone. Court systems across the country are grappling with backlogs caused by the pandemic over ...