Welcome to Night Court : Odd Complaints, Swift Rulings Are the Norm

At just after 6 p.m., Deputy Marshal Keith Warlow asked a roomful of irritated people to rise and face an American flag in the corner of the courtroom in Encino.

“We’d like to swear you in all at once,” he said. “If you will all now raise your left hands, it will save considerable time.”

With those words, swearing in all of the plaintiffs and defendants who were to be heard that evening, Warlow opened the latest episode of what is quickly becoming an institution at the Los Angeles County Municipal Courthouse on White Oak Avenue.

Variety of Cases

In the course of the evening, two small courtrooms in what was once a shopping center were the scenes of arguments over, among other things, an orphans’ fund, a down payment on a piece of furniture and liability for fruit pits found in a garbage disposal.

Welcome to night court.

Long a tradition at the municipal courthouse in downtown Los Angeles, the after-hours version of small claims court was established in the San Fernando Valley in September. Set up to relieve pressure on the overloaded municipal court system in the Valley, night court is held every Thursday in Encino.

Like all small claims courts, the night operation handles only civil suits, with damages limited to $1,500, and lawyers are strictly forbidden--except when they are parties to the suit. Plaintiffs cannot appeal; defendants are allowed to countersue.

Suits must be filed in advance and are scheduled roughly in the order in which they are filed. Judgments are made by municipal judges, judicial commissioners with the powers of judges or lawyers acting as judges with the consent of parties involved in the case.

By all accounts, time is of the essence. Recently, for instance, Municipal Court Commissioner John Ladner and Los Angeles attorney Ed Firestone settled 27 lawsuits in slightly more than two hours--meaning that the average case lasted less than 10 minutes.

Most, in fact, were decided in less than five minutes, with only a few lasting more than a quarter of an hour.

A Mixed Lot

The plaintiffs and defendants were a mixed lot, including a dentist with a suit against a phone company and a one-time toxic waste violator accused of bouncing checks.

“We get them all,” said Municipal Judge Jerry Kreiger, who normally conducts the night sessions.

On a recent night, Ladner heard the following cases:

--A middle-aged woman from Reseda sued the Jewish Orphans Home of Southern California for $1,500 after she failed to receive a piece of antique furniture she bought for $176. A representative of the home told the court that the furniture had been mistakenly donated by a cleaning woman working for a Los Angeles family. The home offered a refund, which the woman refused.

“I have legal title to the furniture,” she said.

Ladner awarded her $210 but no couch. The woman announced that she would file an appeal, only to be told that appeals by plaintiffs are not allowed.

“What’s this court system coming to?” she said. “What happened to my rights?”

--Mary Ann Cates of Woodland Hills sued Benjamin Cook, chairman of Magnum Resources Corp., for $970 in bounced checks. Ladner disqualified himself from the case, noting that he fined Cook $10,000 last year and sentenced him to jail for 90 days for transporting, storing and illegally disposing of toxic cyanide waste in Ventura County.

Cook, who had been served with a summons, failed to show up. After asking a few questions, Firestone ruled in favor of Cates, awarding her the $970.

“I got what I wanted,” Cates said afterward. “Now all I have to do is collect it.”

--A student and a landlord in Reseda sued one another. The student, Kevin Campbell, had rented a room from Pat Burnett and had been evicted. Campbell’s cleaning and rental deposits had not been returned and he sued for $258. The landlord countersued for $450.

Among other things, the landlord accused her tenant of wrecking a garbage disposal by filling it with fruit pits, bandages and string.

“I’m not in the habit of putting string down garbage disposals,” Campbell responded during the court argument. “I’ve lived in houses with garbage disposals all my life. . . . It was broken to begin with. I might have put banana peels in the disposal, but not fruit pits and not Band-Aids or string.”

Ladner did not decide the fruit-pit issue. He found, instead, that the landlord had not given adequate notice of the eviction and awarded Campbell a $143 refund.

According to the night court judges, such landlord-tenant disputes take up much of their time. The most common cases involve auto repairs or accidents. Accordingly, a corner of one courtroom features a blackboard with tiny magnetized model cars, affixed to the surface to re-create the crashes in dispute.

Also heard frequently are arguments over property among former live-in lovers.

Each case is heard the same way: The defendant and plaintiff are called forward by the marshal and they stand at opposite ends of a long table, about six feet from the judge. The judge scans a copy of the suit, then begins asking questions. The answers often tend to stray.

The combatants cannot question one another, but they do not hesitate to point fingers at the enemy.