Small Claims Court Has Smallness of Demeanor

Two weeks ago, I had my first experience with Small Claims Court. And the reviews are mixed.

My wife was given a bad check last January for some work she had done, and we’ve been trying to collect ever since. After exhausting all other avenues--including filing a fruitless Worthless Document Report with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department--we sought restitution through Small Claims Court on May 2, and our case was heard in mid-June.

I should explain up front that we won--or, rather, that we were given a judgment in the amount of the bad check. But it was clear from listening to the litany of woes in Division 10 of Harbor Municipal Court that no one really wins these disputes. By the time they get to Small Claims Court, anger and stress appear to be the clear winners.

As the bailiff told us before the judge appeared: “Be sure and address all your comments to the judge and not to each other. We understand that you’ve had disagreements and may be angry with the other party. But if you speak directly to each other, the court will cut you off and move on to the next case.”

As it turned out, that wasn’t the only reason the judge cut off the people in his courtroom the day we appeared--which is the main reason the reviews are mixed. We learned some things from our day in court that will help us if we ever go this route again--and may also be useful to you.

I had always pictured Small Claims Court as the place where ordinary people could go to redress small grievances without going to the expense or trouble of hiring an attorney. A kind of laissez-faire law in which the formalities normally applied to legal proceedings would be softened a bit to take into consideration the fact that the people appearing had no formal legal training. Based on the performance of Commissioner Richard Sullivan in our courtroom, I don’t believe that anymore.

Sullivan ran a tight ship that tended at times to be demeaning. I didn’t perceive any humor or compassion and very little flexibility in the proceedings. Time after time, people, confused about what was expected of them, were scolded and sent back to their seats like recalcitrant school children. It was rather like Willie Mays chastising a sixth-grader because he couldn’t hit a curve ball.

We were a motley assortment. A youngish woman who had loaned money to a sometime friend and hadn’t been repaid. A man who had been stiffed by a roommate who walked out on his share of the rent. A printer who had been paid with two bad checks. The one thing we had in common was that we were all laymen as far as the law was concerned. We were eager to please and bewildered when we were treated like not-very-bright children. We had been told that lawyers were persona non grata in this courtroom and assumed that our deficiencies in the niceties of the law would be--if not overlooked--at least understood. Not so.

For example, there are certain types of judgments that permit triple damages. Ours was such a claim, and I was told at the window where I picked up the filing papers and also by a representative of the sheriff that a letter had to be written stating the intent to seek damages. We wrote such a letter. So did the printer in front of us that day in court. But the triple damages were disallowed by Commissioner Sullivan in both cases because proper form hadn’t been followed on the letters. Any simpleton, he told us, should know enough to go to the civil code and look up the proper technique.

I checked this out with Lori Myers, a supervisor in the Small Claims Division at the Harbor Court, and she said her department has copies of this code section available at the counter. Why, then, I asked, wasn’t I supplied with one? “Because,” said Ms. Myers, “my clerks are not trained or authorized to offer legal advice or information. So we can only supply this code section if you ask for it.” She also pointed out that the phone number of an adviser is indicated on the Small Claims form to deal with such questions.

So, OK, we were stupid--along with, I suspect, a lot of other people if our day in court was in any way typical. But I’ve always had this feeling that our courts--and especially the Small Claims Court--should be serving the public, not intimidating it. And, believe me, there was some high-level intimidation going on the day we appeared. People were repeatedly cut off in mid-sentence, told their evidence was inappropriate, and sent back to their seats in disgrace, bewildered.

One heavyset man in jeans and a sport shirt was told stiffly that he “didn’t use proper procedure.” When he asked, in some distress, “What did I do wrong?,” all of us in that courtroom were empathic. Especially after he was told curtly that there was no time for explanations if the court were to get through its considerable agenda of cases for the day.

I’m sure that’s true. I’m sure that justice--or what passes for justice in this court--has to be dispensed quickly to avoid a glut of cases that would eventually drown the court. I also suspect this is the bottom rung of the judicial ladder, and when a judge or commissioner has worked this acreage any length of time, it all begins to sound the same to him. It was easy for me to make a parallel with teaching: after so many years, a teacher begins to feel that he has said it all and heard it all.

But that’s dangerous thinking, as I discovered rather painfully in the classroom. While it may be old hat to the teacher (or the judge), it is fresh and new--and often frightening--to the people with whom they are dealing. During my morning in Small Claims Court, every person in that courtroom was living with some sort of minor personal crisis. We were in an environment that was both threatening and strange. We needed compassion, not arrogance; patience, not abrasiveness; understanding, not contempt.

But this small protestation is not going to change the system, so I suggest that you toughen yourself up if you contemplate an appearance in Small Claims Court. And talk to an attorney friend about what you should know before going in. Believe me, you’re not going to get any help from the system.