Editor’s Note: The Indianapolis Bar Association addressed concerns about the Marion County Small Claims Courts in 1992, and after extensive study made recommendations for improvement in a report issued in 1998. These recommendations were not implemented. On July 18, 2011 the Wall Street Journal published an article, “In Debt Collecting, Location Matters,” which raised questions about forum-shopping in the Marion County Small Claims Court system. That article prompted a re-examination of these courts.
The National Center for State Courts (NCSC) has recommended that the Marion County small claims courts transition into a unified section within the civil division of the superior courts. The NCSC report is the third reported study recommending changes to the structure of the small claims system.
In May 2012, the Marion County Small Claims Courts Task Force (“Task Force”) issued a report describing serious problems in the management and procedures of the county’s nine small claims courts. This report recommended a number of reform efforts – some of which could be accomplished by court rule, and others which required legislative action. Before this report was issued, the Marion County Circuit Court created an Advisory Committee (composed of state representatives, plaintiffs’ attorneys, defense counsel, law students, and law clerks). This committee was designed to assist the Circuit Court and small claims court judges in reviewing and approving new rules which would promote uniformity and fairness among each of the nine Marion County Small Claims courts.
Both of these studies are available online and are cited at the end of this article.
This NCSC study was prepared at the request of the Marion County Circuit Court, which has statutory authority to supervise and extend aid and assistance to the township courts, and funded by a grant from the Indiana Supreme Court. Marion County Circuit Court Judge Louis Rosenberg stated that the NCSC report together with the earlier task force study detail a “reliable factual basis for identifying the shortcomings of the present system.”
The NCSC report:
- Provides a statistical profile of the small claims system with charts and tables featuring how the system is financed and how it manages caseloads
- Details a principal inefficiency of the current system in mismatching of resources with caseloads
- Notes that local revenues from filing fees have not kept pace with court expenditures
Court of Appeals Judge John G. Baker, co-chair of the Task Force on the Marion County Small Claims Court, said: “Every organization or group studying this matter has come to the same conclusion. The flexibility and responsiveness of the proposed changes will better serve all of the people in Marion County.”
Incorporating the township courts into a Small Claims Division of the Marion County Superior Court requires new legislation. The Supreme Court has submitted the NCSC report to leadership in the General Assembly along with the Supreme Court’s recommendations for implementation of reforms to the system.
In 1992, the Judicial Study Commission of the Indianapolis Bar Association (IBA) called for the creation of a separate study commission to evaluate the Marion County Small Claims Court and make recommendations for improvements.
The IBA subsequently did evaluate the small claims courts and issued a report in 1998 raising concerns about the use of part-time judges, forum-shopping by plaintiffs, the lack of uniformity, small claims courts not designated as courts of record, favorable treatment to repeat filers, and other issues. That study commission recommended establishing the Marion County Small Claims Court as a court of record; increasing the jurisdictional limit to $10,000; eliminating the “two-step” appeal by providing for appeals to be filed directly to the Indiana Court of Appeals; eliminating the ability to forum-shop; unifying the nine township judges into a single court with five geographic locations: central, north, east, south and west; and, “delinking” the Small Claims Courts from the townships.
In partnership with the Indiana Bar Foundation, the Indiana Supreme Court and the Marion County Circuit Court on October 12, 2012 released a set of videos designed to inform litigants of their rights and responsibilities in small claims court proceedings. These videos are also available online.