REPORT NO. 135 June 5, 1998
A. 10027 By: M of A Sidikman
Assembly Committee: Judiciary
Effective Date: Immediately
AN ACT to amend the civil practice law and rules and the judiciary law, in relation to the removal of cases
LAW AND SECTIONS REFERRED TO: CPLR 325(d), 8018; Judiciary Law Section 39(2)(e)
REPORT PREPARED BY THE COMMITTEE ON CIVIL PRACTICE
LAW AND RULES (#45)
This bill was requested by the Office of Court Administration but was not proposed by the Advisory Committee on Civil Practice to the Chief Administrator of the Courts . It would amend CPLR 325(d) so as to mandate removal from Supreme Court to a lower court (other than a town or village justice court) any action in which the amount of damages sought does not exceed $50,000 and reduce the index number fee of the County Clerk for any such action from $165.00 to $35.00.
The supporting memorandum explains that the bill is intended to achieve the same purpose as an amendment to the constitution of the State which the voters of the state rejected in 1997 because the negative vote registered only "misunderstanding of the amendment's effects" rather than "disapproval of the aims of the amendment."
Leaving aside for the moment whether the effects of the defeated amendment were desirable, the instant bill is patently unconstitutional. Although the memorandum purports to find authority for such removals in Article VI, Section 19, subsections (a), (g) and (k), subsection (a) expressly limits any removal "to any other court having jurisdiction of the subject matter". The monetary limits of the lower courts are limitations on subject matter jurisdiction which preclude the transfers contemplated by this statute.
The transfers presently carried out under CPLR 325(d) are permissible under the statute because a judicial officer determines that while the amount of damages claimed may exceed the dollar threshold of the lower court, the maximum amount of damages likely to be recovered does not exceed that threshold. Once transferred, Article VI, Section 19(k) and CPLR 325(d) provide that, in the unlikely event the amount recovered does exceed the dollar threshold, judgment may be entered for that higher amount.
The justification for the amendment the defeat of which this bill seeks to circumvent was that the dollar threshold of the lower courts needed to be raised because of the passage of time (the jurisdictional limit of the Civil Court of the City of New York was last raised in 1983) and the availability of underutilized resources in the lower courts. Although this rational is superficially appealing, the voters may have had better reasons than lack of perception to reject the amendment.
The difficulty with the rejected amendment and this bill is that the character of a case which makes it suitable for removal to a lower court cannot be determined by a rigid review of the claim for damages. Many personal injury claims are resolved by settlement or otherwise for less than $25,000 and could very appropriately be transferred to a lower court. However, because the ad damnum claim in any personal injury action is sure to exceed $50,000 (or $100,000, for that matter), no personal injury actions will be transferred under the bill, even though such actions constitute a majority of the cases filed in Supreme Court (65% in New York County) and seem highly likely to constitute a majority of those suitable for resolution in a lower court. On the other hand, many commercial actions are for less than $50,000 but are likely to disposed of by a motion for summary judgment in which the court and the litigants will benefit from the greater depth of resources in the Supreme Court.
The problem that the bill seeks to solve, a difference between the relationship of resources and case load in the Supreme Court and the lower courts, could be better addressed with a more systemic use of CPLR 325(d) which resulted in the transfer to lower courts of the actions which can be appropriately addressed by them and avoided reliance on unconstitutional legislation.
Persons who prepared the report: James N. Blair, Esq.
Chair of the Committee: Paul H. Aloe, Esq.