Recession-related Suits a Drain on Courts

• Jurisdiction: California,United States
• Citation: Vol. 06 No. 2010 Pg. 01
• Publication year: 2010
• Pages: 01
• Year: 2010
• topic: Bankruptcy and Insolvency,Contracts,Family Law,Civil Procedure,Real Estate

California Bar Journal 2010.

CBJ - June 2010 #01. Recession-related suits a drain on courts

The California Lawyer
June 2010

Recession-related suits a drain on courts.

By Diane Curtis
Staff Writer

It's a vicious circle: Defendants seek community service because they can't pay the fines of a traffic citation or a conviction. The courts lose revenue and have to compensate with overworked staff or reduced programs or delays - or further increases in fees and fines - as a result of decreased funding. At the same time, the number of cases coming to the courts - although not necessarily going to trial - is escalating because the recession has resulted in more foreclosures, more evictions, more contract disputes, more home burglaries, more petitions for expungement, more petty theft, more small claims, more requests for a change in alimony or child support, more domestic violence, more unpaid debts. And all this is happening when the state can't pay its bills, resulting in furloughs and cutbacks, although a May revision of the budget indicates those furloughs in the courts may end.

"When the economy forces people to avoid their obligations, lawsuits increase," says Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert Dukes in the court's annual report. "We in the trial courts are forced to address these mounting concerns with dwindling resources." Adds his colleague, Judge Gail Ruderman Feuer: "The recession is straining our misdemeanor courts to the limits and confounding our capacity to deter and rehabilitate offenders."

See related article:

* Foreclosures swamping State Bar discipline

And it goes on: People who can't pay their fines also can't pay mandatory fees. That can mean more jail time and more crowded jails as well as lost income (if there was money coming in), and in turn more foreclosures, more evictions, etc. The courts feel the brunt in longer court cases and delays when people can't afford attorneys. People who represent themselves need more help from the clerks and the judges and often draw out a case that could have been settled out of court or dispatched more quickly and easily if lawyers were representing them. Also, especially in family law cases, confrontations get more heated because the middle man has been eliminated.

In San Francisco, 2009 employment claims were up 89 percent over 2007, eviction and other unlawful detainer cases up 49 percent, collections up 32 percent and breach of contract cases up 25...