Pumping Up Small Claims: Reformers seek $20K court limits—with no lawyersAuthor(s): JILL SCHACHNER CHANENSource: ABA Journal, Vol. 84, No. 12 (DECEMBER 1998), p. 18Published by: American Bar AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27840546 .

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Pumping Up Small Claims Reformers seek $20K court limits?with no lawyers BY JILL SCHACHNER CHANEN

When a painter ruins a home owner's $1,500 antique rug, the place to go is usually small claims court. There the parties can resolve the dispute by themselves without resorting to costly litigation.

But what if the rug were worth $15,000? Or even $20,000? Many small claims courts could not take the case because the amount in dispute ex ceeds their jurisdictional limit. And many lawyers

wouldn't take the case be cause it just isn't worth their time.

But a Washington, D.C.-based legal reform group is charging into this jurisdictional no-man's land with plans to draft

model legislation raising the limit of each state's small claims court system to $20,000. The proposal is part of a package of re forms planned for next year by halt?An Organi zation of Americans for Legal Reform.

All but six states have some form of small claims court, but the claim limits vary widely, from a low of $1,000 in Virginia to a high of $15,000 in Dela ware and Tennessee, according to 1996 research by the National Cen ter for State Courts in Williams burg, Va.

Also, halt wants to allow small claims courts to provide injunctive relief as well as damages and to eliminate the use of lawyers.

The Best of the Courts "What we are trying to do is to

identify the practices that work best in small claims courts nation wide and pull them together as a clearinghouse and a stimulus in trying to adopt the [best] process es," says James Turner, halt's ex

ecutive director. Turner admits there is no sta

tistical rationale to the $20,000 fig

ure, but he says he believes the figure marks a point below which most lawyers will refuse a case.

"For most, if not all, lawyers in private practice, a dispute where there is less than $20,000 in issue is below their radar," Turner says. "It does not make great economic

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sense for a lawyer to get involved in a private matter with that small of an amount."

But others question whether the increase in limits will under

mine the reason that most states' small claims courts were created: as a forum to provide speedy reso lution of simple legal issues with out the need for the rules of civil procedure, evidence, discovery and jury trials.

The proposal also could result in a loss of business for general practitioners who do handle claims falling into halt's target zone.

Larry Ramirez, chair of the aba's General Practice, Solo and Small Firm Section, says his con cern is not so much for the lawyers

as it is for the litigants. "I would be concerned about

their ability to protect their own in terests," says Ramirez of Las Cru ces, N.M.

"I don't know if people under stand that if you have a $10,000 claim, it may be worth spending a

few thousand dollars on a lawyer so that you do not end up with nothing."

Judge Frederic B. Rodgers of Golden, Colo., chair of the aba Judicial Division, cautions about the risks of increasing the monetary limit. He warns that larger claims now handled in regular courts are more complex than smaller ones, and that there is a benefit provided by the proce dural safeguards that are usually not a part of small claims court.

"Every time you get a more complicated dis pute, you provide a great er opportunity for sur

prises at trial," Rodgers says.

"It is not justice," he adds, "when you sudden ly wish you had talked to a lawyer or had done re search or availed yourself of a traditional law court where you have rules of

procedure, evidence and discovery." For that reason, Turner points

out, halt's model legislation will include a provision to increase the use of alternative dispute resolution among litigants in small claims courts.

"There is a continuum between hiring [Robert] Bennett and going it alone," Turner says. "There are

many stops along the way, includ ing self-help books, independent paralegals and legal aid. It is a

faulty dichotomy to say you are ei ther with a lawyer or you are on your own."

Proponents of small claims courts are hoping that spectrum can be widened enough for more cases to ease through.

18 ABA JOURNAL / DECEMBER 1998 GRAPHIC BY JEFF DIONISE

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