Small Claims Court: 2nd Look Changes Perspective

I never know when one of these columns will touch an exposed nerve Out There. A recent description of the mostly negative experience my wife and I had in the Harbor District small claims court of Commissioner Richard Sullivan did just that. Emphatically and painfully.

About two-thirds of the reactions--which came by both phone and mail--were from citizens with similar unhappy experiences in Harbor and other Orange County small claims courts. The rest came from attorneys and jurists who explained some of the difficulties under which small claims operates and felt I had been unduly harsh in what one letter writer called a “wholesale indictment.”

But on one point, both sides generally agreed: that claimants and defendants need to be better informed before tackling small claims court. On virtually all other issues, the disagreement was both widespread and passionate enough to warrant a second look.

A letter from Costa Mesa attorney Robert Bills--printed in The Times last week--suggested that I have “unrealistic expectations of our small claims courts and our judges.”

Do I? And what should we expect?

I decided to ask that question of Commissioner Sullivan, whose court procedure I criticized. I went to his courtroom and requested an audience from his clerk. She called me later and said that Commissioner Sullivan is going in for major surgery next week, will be off the bench for two months, and the current press of affairs makes it impossible for him to see me. Clearly under these circumstances such a conversation would have been inappropriate anyway.

So in casting about for another judge from whom to seek this perspective, I remembered a letter from San Clemente attorney Richard Blum, who wrote, in part: “Not all small claims judges or commissioners react quite the way you described. I have had the pleasant experience of sitting pro tem in a traffic court where small claims cases are often held. On the bench, I noted the Commissioner’s note to himself: ‘Patience, patience, patience. This is their court, not yours.’ ”

I decided to find that commissioner. His name is Matthew Flynn, and he is a ruddy, somewhat portly, ex-Orange County cop and family law attorney who has been sitting for two years as a Commissioner in Laguna Hills. He says that small claims “isn’t a perfect system but it certainly is a valid way to handle disputes given the economics of things today.” He hopes that a bill now pending in the Legislature to raise the small claims limit from $2,500 to $5,000 will pass because “in matters under $5,000 it makes no economic sense to hire an attorney.”

Flynn was uneasy that something he said might reflect on peers whose styles are different. His style is deliberate and thorough. (I watched him in action before we talked). He says: “If I have to think too much, then I’m not yet convinced. So I allow as much time as both the litigants and I need.”

As a result, Flynn usually doesn’t render a decision in the courtroom but takes additional time to “think about the case, research points of law, and consult experts in whatever field I’m dealing.”

He gives everybody “one additional shot” if they aren’t ready when they come to court. He remembers vividly a lesson he learned as a cop during the antiwar demonstrations of the 1960s. He argued frequently then with a liberal judge he later came to respect, who once told him: “When you wear a robe or a badge, you have authority over people. But that never gives you the right to take away human dignity.”

It says something about the passions stirred up by small claims court that the most vitriolic letter that came to me in the aftermath of the original small claims column was directed at Commissioner Flynn by a Laguna Niguel citizen upset over a Flynn decision in a case involving his wife. “Liar” was one of the milder epithets laid on Flynn in that letter.

When I showed it to him, he remembered the case and his reasons for ruling as he did. Then he shrugged and said: “I have to make a judgment, and somebody loses. I’ve been criticized for a lot of those judgments, but never--as far as I know--for my treatment of people in court.

“In small claims court, there are two schools of thought: a strict, literal, technical interpretation of the law or gut feelings. I started out in the first school but now I also do the best I can humanly. That’s why I keep that sign in front of me all the time--to remind me it is ‘their court and not mine.’ If I don’t have a feeling for human nature, I shouldn’t be in this line of work.”

Before I left, Flynn put me in his judicial chair “so I could get the view from the other end.” He said: “I was always intimidated when I had to come into court. I remember that, and even from up here, I still am.”

Clearly there is a wide range of styles and personalities on the small claims bench in Orange County. As Newport Beach attorney and former pro tem Commissioner John Saginaw told me: “The courts have been squeezed financially by the Legislature for many years. The legislators enact laws, then refuse to provide the courts enough money to enforce them, and that causes crowded calendars that lead to much of the trouble you describe. But there is never any excuse for rudeness from the bench.”

To which attorney Richard Blum added: “It is a difficult job, but if your experience was typical of that court, your editorial is not enough.”

On the citizen’s side of the ledger is a responsibility to prepare for small claims court as well as possible, either by consulting an attorney friend or by making use of the public information that is available. Or both.

The Orange County Bar Assn. has produced a 15-minute audio tape on small claims court that prospective claimants can listen to by dialing (714) 835-5294 between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. on weekdays. Although it ignores the matter of triple damages, it is otherwise rich in basic and useful information. Help is also available through an advisory program sponsored by the courts. If you dial (714) 567-5006, you can get answers to procedural (but not legal) questions. You can also find a book called “Small Claims Court” at the clerk’s office of your local Municipal Court.

And Commissioner Flynn urges that you sit through a session of small claims court before your case comes up. “That’s the best preparation of all,” he says, “along with bringing in clear evidence--pictures and documents--to show the court what the facts are.”

But, once again, the bottom line is on the card taped to Matthew Flynn’s bench: This is our court, and we have a right to equitable and courteous treatment.

And if we don’t get it, we have a right--maybe even a responsibility--to raise hell.