Business Credit October Journal 2014 It Can Be a Jungle in There: A Litigant's View of Small Claims Court By Janay Haas Re-published from the Oregon State Bar Bulletin Oregonians file more than 77,000 small claims cases annually in the state’s justice and circuit courts. That number is higher than all other civil cases combined and more than all criminal cases, with the exception of traffic court. That number means that thousands of unrepresented people — a number well beyond those we see struggling solo through family court — are braving the court system without much guidance about what to expect or what to do.
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But traversing small claims court is easier than wrangling with all the rules and procedures that are part of a circuit court case, isn’t it? There’s no question the small claims process is shorter, and, in most circumstances, less expensive: no formal discovery, no arbitration in damages cases, no strict adherence to the rules of evidence. Except for the few cases in justice courts, however, the parties get only one bite of the apple — there is no recourse to the Oregon Court of Appeals. And, whether or not the rules of civil procedure, uniform trial court rules, and local court rules come into play (in many counties they do), the parties still have to prove the elements of their cases in order to prevail on their claims.
It Can Be a Jungle in There: A. Litigant's View of Small Claims Court..................................... 1
According to the state’s few remaining county law librarians, small claims court questions are among their most frequent inquiries. So, when one librarian asked me to consider writing a small claims court handbook, I said yes. Why not? Hadn’t I been referring clients and would-be clients to small claims courts for a couple of decades?
The Art of the Preference Defense ................................ 3
The only thing holding me back was that I’d never gone to small claims court. I’d never even sat in a courtroom waiting for my “real” case to start while a judge was winding up small claims hearings. I hoped to interview lawyers who had appeared in small claims matters; however, inquiring of judges whether they allowed attorneys to appear in small claims cases, I began to suspect that more Oregon lawyers have argued before the United States Supreme Court than have appeared in our state’s “people’s courts.”
Meet Clara.............................. 7
Small Claims Court According to the ORS
Chairman's Message................ 2 President’s Message................ 2
Questions from the Forum....... 5
Word Tips & Tricks ................. 8 NACM Oregon New Website is Live ....................... 13 Credit Basics: Setting Credit..... 15
I headed next to Oregon statutes for guidance on what litigants could expect. ORS 46.415(3) summarizes the goals of small claims proceedings:
The hearing and disposition of all cases shall be informal, the sole object being to dispense justice promptly and economically between the litigants… [T]he judge may investigate the controversy and give judgment or make such orders as the judge deems to be right, just and equitable for the disposition of the controversy.
In short, judges are free to do what they believe is the right thing, freedom that their colleagues in circuit court don’t necessarily have under statutory and evidentiary constraints that don’t apply in small claims cases.
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