Save Our State  

Go Back   Save Our State > General Forum (non official Save Our State business) > The Judicial Branch

The Judicial Branch Topics and information of interest to SOS associates in relation to courts, law, and justice

WELCOME BACK!.............NEW EFFORTS AHEAD..........CHECK BACK SOON.........UPDATE YOUR EMAIL FOR NEW NOTIFICATIONS.........
Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old 01-24-2010, 11:26 AM
admin's Avatar
admin admin is offline
Administrator
 
Join Date: Oct 2009
Posts: 469
Default Small Claims Court; Doorway To oligarchy

I've been looking into the system of small claims court,

One thing that particularly disturbs me is the manner in which it subverts the constitutional garauntees to jury trial. The issue is, if you are defendant, and insist on your constitutional right to a trail by jury under section 16 of the California Constitution, you are denied. The foundation for the denial is based, not upon something spelled out in the California constitution, but rather a historical interpretation of old parlimentary English law (rule).


The excerpt provided here is from a California court in
JOSEPH CROUCHMAN, Petitioner, v. THE SUPERIOR COURT OF SANTA CRUZ COUNTY, Respondent; EL DORADO INVESTORS, Real Party in Interest
S.F. No. 24952
Supreme Court of California
Quote:
[The right to jury trial in the de novo appeal in a small claims action does not turn on the legal nature of the claim. Instead, our analysis under both section 592 and the constitutional guarantee in this case must turn on a more basic historical analysis. Our state Constitution essentially preserves the right to a jury in those actions in which there was a right to a jury trial at common law at the time the Constitution was first adopted. ( C & K Engineering, supra, 23 Cal.3d at pp. 8-9.) Thus, the scope of the constitutional right to jury trial depends on the provisions for jury trial at common law. The historical analysis of the common law right to jury often relies on the traditional distinction between courts at law, in which a jury sat, and courts of equity, in which there was no jury. When analyzing whether there is a constitutional entitlement to a jury in a small claims case, however, we must look beyond the legal/equitable dichotomy, because that distinction was irrelevant, at common law, to the provision of a jury for a small monetary claim.

[Historical inquiry reveals that there were various special juryless small claims tribunals in England and the American colonies, territories, and states, many of them well established before the adoption of our state Constitution. (See Pound, Organization of Courts (1940) pp. 150-156, 245-246.) Significantly, in the years preceding 1850, a litigant in a special small claims proceeding was not necessarily entitled to a jury even if the claim at issue was legal and could alternatively have been brought in a common law court and heard by a jury. (See Barrett, The Constitutional Right to Jury Trial: A Historical Exception for Small Monetary Claims (1987) 39 Hastings L.J. 125, 154.) Under the English system, "when remedies were available simultaneously in both tribunals [i.e., the common law court and a special small claims tribunal], the prevailing practice not only permitted summary relief in the juryless small claims tribunals but strongly encouraged it: in some jurisdictions there were laws expressly penalizing the litigant who persisted in seeking the common law procedure for a small monetary claim. The very purpose of small claims courts was to provide the kind of relief the common law courts provided -- money judgments -- through a procedure simplified to accommodate the small amount-in-controversy." (Ibid., fn. omitted.)]

[Thus,] [the] small claims court concept is by no means new: A concern that access to courts of general jurisdiction was beyond the means of poor plaintiffs with small claims can be tracked back in English legal history at least to the fifteenth century. (Cf. 1 Holdsworth, A History of English Law (7th ed. 1956) pp. 186-187.) "The establishment of small claims courts was intended to provide speedy, inexpensive, and informal disposition of small actions through simple proceedings conducted with an eye toward compromise and conciliation. The court was to be designed particularly to help the 'poor' litigant. An informal court procedure was thought to reduce expense and delay 'in cases involving small amounts and often no real issue of law.' Further, it was believed that by securing justice to ordinary citizens in small cases, the integrity of our judicial system would be meaningfully demonstrated. [para. ] The small claims movement led to the statutory creation of a small debt court in London in 1606. In 1846, the new county courts were created in England to provide speedy and informal disposition of small causes." ([Comment], The California Small Claims Court, supra, 52 Cal. L. Rev. 876, 876-877 [fns. omitted].) In the new county courts as they existed in 1850 by virtue of the Act of 1846, there was no right to trial by jury if the amount at issue was five pounds or less, and there appears to have been no right of appeal at all. (Cf. 1 Holdsworth, supra, p. 192.) [] [(See also Barrett, supra, 39 Hastings L.J. at p. 143 ["Nor was there any right to a jury on appeal from the new county courts, since there was no appeal in any case involving less than twenty pounds." (fn. omitted)]; Pound, supra, at p. 269 [Noting that "[at] one time or another legislation has forbidden any appeal where the sum or property in controversy did not exceed some small fixed amount or value," and suggesting that the preferable solution with regard to review of small claims court judgments is "to provide an appeal as simple, speedy, and inexpensive as the original proceeding . . . ."].)
http://web.lexis-nexis.com/research/...&focBudSel=all

So I ask; Was there really a successful revolution from British rule in the colonies?
Reply With Quote
  #2  
Old 01-25-2010, 03:47 PM
Kathy63 Kathy63 is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2009
Posts: 380
Default

You are not entitled to an attorney in small claims court either.

If you are a defendant and you lose, you can appeal your case to the Superior Court and have both attorney and jury. You have to pay for these things, including jury fees, but you can have them if you wish. If you are a plaintiff and you lose, since you chose the venue, you can't appeal anywhere. Most people make a conscious decision not to appeal because the amount in question is far, far smaller than what it would cost to hire and attorney and pay court costs and jury fees.

There was a successful revolution of British Rule, not not British law. We made a decision to truck along British common law and keep it (Except for Louisiana that has the Napoleonic Code). In that we are like Pakistan and India both of which chose to adopt British common law, although Pakistan does have Sharia Courts too.

Last edited by Kathy63; 01-25-2010 at 03:51 PM.
Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -8. The time now is 08:32 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright SaveOurState ©2009 - 2016 All Rights Reserved