Full-Court Press on Small-Claims Division

Mr. Kivowitz had this problem.

Here he’d amassed 80,000 frequent-flier miles with United Airlines, and used them to take an 11-hour trip, but when the in-flight movie began, his individual viewing screen remained blank.

Every seat on the plane was filled, so he couldn’t move to another, and what was he supposed to do to pass the time? Walk up and down the aisle for 11 hours? Somebody was going to pay for this.

But if Mr. Kivowitz thought he had a problem, he should have walked a mile in Mr. Ben-Levy’s shoes.

Mr. Ben-Levy had given a certain woman a tryout at his business, and even lent her money. And how had she paid him back? By not paying him back. And by running up his phone bill calling a 900-number psychic.

Yet, Mr. Ben-Levy’s problem, though considerable, was as a gnat compared to Mr. Lee’s.

Mr. Lee had brought his Windstar to a Ford dealership for its 60,000-mile maintenance, and just 12 days later the van had blown its head gasket. This had happened, Mr. Lee felt sure, because somebody at the dealership hadn’t put engine coolant back in the radiator after servicing it. Now he was stuck with a repair bill for $2,395.64, and it was plain to see that Ford owed him big time.

Such problems--not catastrophes, but niggling, maddening problems--never stop flowing at Van Nuys Municipal Court’s small-claims Division 114. Here the molten stuff of petty conflict and quotidian woe are laid before the stately edifice of the law to be cooled into the slag of resolution.

Or, as much resolution as a small-claims court anywhere can offer, given that successful plaintiffs must figure out for themselves how to collect on whatever judgments the court gives them.

On the seventh floor of the courthouse, high above the teeming ordinariness of the San Fernando Valley, Commissioner Martin Green sorts through the angers and disappointments from soured agreements, unfilled commercial promises, personal checks that proved to be of a more elastic substance than paper. Always he looks for proof, the hard evidence that speaks more persuasively than the most impassioned account of ill treatment.

*

Seventy such cases pass before the imperturbable Green each working day. He seeks to dispose of each in 10 minutes or less. Last year, Division 114 and the other Van Nuys small-claims court, Division 125, which does business in a trailer on the courthouse grounds, received nearly 19,000 new filings. In 1997, the seven full-time small-claims courts in the Los Angeles Municipal Court system disposed of more than 115,600 cases.

Lawyers are not allowed in small-claims court--a bit of wisdom not yet extended to higher courts--except as plaintiffs or defendants. No claim may exceed $5,000, and most are for far less.

Yet, the less that divides people, it often seems, the more vociferously it must be insisted on. Thus the warning Green delivered to plaintiffs and defendants on the day this week when the problems of Mr. Kivowitz, Mr. Ben-Levy and Mr. Lee were among those on the docket:

“This is still a court of law. I expect you to follow our simple rules. Don’t interrupt. Don’t argue. If you don’t conduct yourselves as civilized, mature, dignified adults, you might as well leave now.”

No one left.

Green’s bailiff, Sheriff’s Deputy John Carter, further admonished them, no matter how moving their cause, to stay out of the space between the commissioner’s bench and the plaintiff’s and defendant’s tables. “Do not come into ‘the well,’ ” said Carter, who is muscular and was armed. “Bad things happen to people who come into ‘the well.’ ”

Mr. Kivowitz pleaded his case against United Airlines in re the movieless video screen. He wished to be compensated “for services not provided.” Five thousand dollars, he said, ought to take care of things.

“Given the state of Hollywood today,” Commissioner Green wondered, “are you sure you missed out on anything?”

The man from United Airlines insisted the only contractual responsibility the airline had after Mr. Kivowitz acquired his ticket was to transport him “from Point A to Point B.” Movies were merely a courtesy. Moreover, he said, the airline had already given Mr. Kivowitz a $250 travel voucher for his loss.

Green pondered the problem.

“To be honest, sir,” he told Mr. Kivowitz, “I doubt that your case is worth $250. If you want to hold onto the travel voucher, I’ll dismiss the case. So, do you want to keep the travel voucher or roll the dice?”

Mr. Kivowitz pondered this new problem.

“I will have to keep the travel voucher,” he said, “based on what you just told me.”

*

Mr. Ben-Levy, a small man in a royal blue velvet sport coat, had his turn. He asked to be compensated for $650 in telephone bills, and loans he made to the certain woman, who was not present in court.

“Do you have a promissory note?” Green asked. “Is she your girlfriend? Is she . . . ?”

“She was a prospective employee,” Mr. Ben-Levy said. He handed a canceled check to the bailiff, who handed it to Green.

“But this check’s not made out to her at all,” Green said, “but rather to . . . “

“But on the memo line, it says her name, see? On the memo line.”

“Please,” Green said to Mr. Ben-Levy, “let me finish a sentence. We have a chance of getting somewhere if you let me finish a sentence.”

Mr. Ben-Levy continued: “Also, she had phone abuse. Instead of sitting and working she called a psychic. She called her parents and friends in Massachusetts.”

Green pondered the problem. “OK,” he said at last. “You’ll receive a judgment in the mail.”

When it was time for him, Mr. Lee stood calmly at the plaintiff’s table, hands folded in front of him. About 10 days after he’d fetched his Windstar from the Ford dealership, he noticed the temperature gauge was registering higher than usual. Someone told him this was normal after a major servicing, “but then it blew up,” he said.

“Someone told you?” Green asked. “Who was this someone?”

“Just someone. A customer in my restaurant.”

Mr. Lee went on to say that after its head gasket blew, he had the van towed to a mechanic, who told him there was no coolant in the radiator. The only answer, he said, was that someone at Ford hadn’t put any in.

“That can’t be,” Green said. “Otherwise you couldn’t have driven it for 10 days. What is Ford’s side of the case?”

The man from Ford hitched up his trousers. “That is our case,” he said.

Green drummed his fingers on copies of the repair orders while yet again pondering the problem. He decided to take the case “under submission,” give it more thought and mail his decision to the parties.

He figured they’d accept it calmly, whatever it was. “Sometimes I think they’re not all that concerned with my ruling,” he confided. “Mostly they just want their day in court to vent their spleen.”