The San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News and Bay Citizen all ran articles over the past day on the major delays Californians can expect to see in civil courts as a result of the $350 million cut to the court system’s operating budget. An equally devastating cut is projected for next year, and plans for new courthouses are on hold as well, as lawmakers also shifted $310 million from a courthouse construction fund to help cover this year’s shortfall.
Under these circumstances, it is all the more important to reduce the number of frivolous civil cases that clog our courts. We must look at other ways for parties to resolve their disputes. We cannot makes things worse with legislation that will throw more cases into our already overburdened court system, like this year’s AB 1062 (Dickinson), which would eliminate the long-standing right of immediate appeal when a court dismisses an arbitration agreement. Arbitration is a fair, fast, and effective way of resolving disputes and we should look for ways to increase its use to relieve pressure on the courts.
We should also look at innovative approaches like expedited jury trials, created last year by AB 2284 (Evans). Other appropriate steps that CJAC has long-supported are measures like this year’s SB 603 (Berryhill), which would have created more restrictions on vexatious litigants that file excessive, unwarranted lawsuits, and SB 783 (Dutton) which would have helped resolve ADA disputes outside of the courtroom by giving business owners an opportunity to make fixes before they could be sued.
Our courts are too strained to keep dealing with illegitimate lawsuits, and now it’s only going to get worse. We need to consider changes so the courts can deal with the cases that actually belong there.
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