Small Claims Court
I frequently tell people that lawsuits are expensive. As a result, many people only litigate disputes concerning large amounts of money, since smaller amounts are not worth the trouble or cost. But some disputes are important to people, even if the amount at stake is low. People care about being disrespected or scammed. And what may be a small amount of money to one person may be significant go another. Luckily, there is a forum for people to dispute small amounts because, in the alternative, people would take matters into their own hands. That forum is small claims court.
Why should you read this post about small claims court?
You want to know if it is like TV judge shows like The People’s Court.
You want to learn about a forum that has fewer technical rules, but still a bunch of technical rules.
Someone stole $700 from you and you want to do something about it that may take a year.
Image credit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny#/media/File:US_One_Cent_Obv.png
Filing a Claim
Only certain types of cases qualify for small claims court. Generally, they are disputes over an amount of money below a certain threshold. For example, in New York City, small claims courts hear disputes for up to $10,000. In Miami, they hear claims for up to $8,000. These are amounts of money that may not seem small (no one wants to lose $8,000), but that are below the cost of litigating a full case in another court.
The case begins when a plaintiff files a claim. Unlike other courts, which may allow e-filing, many small claims courts (like the one in New York City) require litigants to file a claim in person. This requires filling out a form in pen that identifies who the defendant is, how much he or she owes the plaintiff, and why. Then, the plaintiff needs to pay a filing fee. In New York City, it’s $15 or $20.
After that, the court will set a hearing date. In my experience, the hearing date may be pretty far in the future (though sooner than the conclusion of most lawsuits), often several months after filing a claim. This may come as a surprise to someone full of anger and eager for swift justice. But the court needs to give the plaintiff time to serve the defendant, plus there is usually a backlog of cases and a limited number of cases the court can hear on any given day. Still, some courts are quicker, providing a court date within a few weeks. Also, some small claims courts hold sessions in the evening to let litigants attend who need to work during the day.
Next the plaintiff needs to arrange for service of the defendant. As I mentioned in a previous post, the plaintiff cannot do this herself; instead she needs to arrange for someone else to deliver the initiating papers to the defendant to let her know she is the defendant in a lawsuit and when to appear.
The Hearing
In a standard litigation, the next step would be for the defendant to file an answer and the parties to engage in discovery. But small claims court usually accelerates the process and lets the parties proceed straight to a kind of trial. As a result, defendants often do anything related to the case before the day of the hearing.
Because there is usually no discovery, the parties bring with them all of the evidence they have and likely must rely only upon evidence they already possess.
On the day of the hearing, the parties arrive at the court and are likely directed to wait in a room with all of the other weird people small claims litigants. Over time, a court employee may announce that a judge is ready to hear a case and invites the litigants to speak and to ask each other questions. Then, the process is pretty informal: the judge asks each side to explain what happened and then she may ask questions and make a decision. Often this takes place in a small office instead of in a large courtroom, but I have seen it take place in a courtroom. And while litigants may bring lawyers, most do not since a lawyer’s fees could take a significant bite out of the recovery and since there isn’t much for the lawyer to do since the judge basically just interviews the litigants.
Judgment Enforcement and Appeals
After the judge makes her decision, she may sign an order or a judgment. A successful plaintiff may use the judgment to collect the amount due if the defendant does not pay voluntarily. To do so, the plaintiff may have to use the same mechanisms to enforce a judgment that a litigant in other courts may use. Since these can be complicated and expensive, they may undermine the benefit of small claims court. But if the defendant has a bank account, as many small claims defendants do, the process may not be too difficult.
A litigant may want to appeal a small claims court decision. These appeals are rare, since appeals are a lot of work and take a lot of time (especially since they involve technical rules), so the amount at stake may not be worth it. But they may be allowed. Still, the appeal is not an opportunity to re-do the case, instead to confirm that the original small claims procedure was fairly administered. Since there are not usually transcripts of the small claims hearing, judges may be deferential and not disturb the decisions on appeal. Sometimes these appeals go to a trial court and other times they go to an appeals court.