Phillips Brooks House group proposes small claims court reforms

By Allison Chisolm

Special to the Gazette

The fire had left her house a mess -- doors were charred, the roof needed patching, and the plumbing -- well, she didn't know where to start on the pipes. So last year, aRma Carter (sic) called a carpenter to make her house a home again.

But the elderly Dorchester resident called the wrong person and has lived with her mistake ever since. A man claiming to be a carpenter told her the work would cost $28,000, and she would have to pay in cash. She gave him $7,500 to start.

That's when the nightmare began. He didn't replace the doors. He didn't patch the roof. According to Carter, he used cheap materials and did shoddy work. To top it off, she learned he didn't even have a carpentry license.

So she called the Better Business Bureau to complain. When the so-called carpenter heard about her complaint, he sued her in Small Claims Court.

Carter brought her story to the Inman Square office of the Small Claims Advisory Service (SCAS), a committee of the Phillips Brooks House Association run by Harvard students and staffed by student and community volunteers. The Service is the only agency in Massachusetts that addresses Small Claims Court issues (outside the court system itself).

Each year, some 70 to 100 SCAS volunteers answer procedural questions and offer information and assistance on potential claims in Small Claims Court, which hears civil disputes on amounts up to $2,000.

The students volunteering in the Columbia Street office listened to Carter's story and helped her plan a response to the suit. If she chose to file her own claim, they could help her with the paperwork and accompany her to court if she wished. But their role in the courtroom is limited to personal support for their clients.

"We emphasize we're not lawyers," says organization Executive Director John Orsini '98.

Carter, who won $2,000 in court, is only one of hundreds of clients helped each year by the Small Claims Advisory Service, founded in 1974 by a group of Harvard students with the help of John C. Cratsley, now a Superior Court Judge.

Students take calls at Phillips Brooks House afternoons and evenings, see clients three days a week in the Inman Square office owned by Cambridge and Somerville Legal Services, and make frequent visits to small claims courts in Boston and elsewhere. They spend one to two semesters training, reading case studies, and learning about laws affecting landlords and tenants, consumers, and car buyers.

"This is one area where I can have an impact in the space of a phone call," says Elizabeth Pope '98, the group's director of law reform and legal research. "This information [on Small Claims Court] is fairly inaccessible to most people, and I find sharing it very rewarding."

Harvard students involved with SCAS have "immersed themselves in this area in ways no one else has," says Judith Kidd, assistant dean for public service and director of Phillips Brooks House. "They take very seriously their responsibility to train their volunteers."

Seeking Legislative Reform

In the course of helping clients, Harvard students have heard a lot of frustrating stories. The most annoying problem, one group decided, occurs when a client wins a judgment in Small Claims Court, but doesn't receive it because the person who lost doesn't pay and can't be found. It's currently up to the winner to pursue the matter, which often costs more time and money than the original judgment.

So last spring, a new subcommittee -- the law reform group -- was born to try to change the way judgments are handled in Small Claims Court. Some 15 students drafted bill H1344 to create a new section of Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 218.

Their bill offers a series of steps to ensure that a judgment is paid. For example, it requires a debtor to supply his or her employer's name and address -- information that is vital if the court later wants to order wages assigned to the winner.

The measure provides for automatic payment hearings, creates a system of escalating fines for debtors who don't appear in court or pay, and allows for nonrenewal of a driver's license if the loser does not cooperate, among the provisions. Perhaps most important, it requires the court to provide clear information on these proceedings to everyone involved.

"The point is not to collect escalating fees or block renewal of a driver's license, but to use those as inducements to get people to pay," Pope explains.

The students found a sponsor in State Representative Paul

Demakis '75, JD '78, who submitted the bill in January for consideration by the House Judiciary Committee.

Several students expect to testify at a public hearing next month to explain the merits of their proposal. If the Joint Committee on Judiciary gives a favorable recommendation, the measure will proceed to several other committees. A bill must pass through both the House and Senate to be enacted.

The proposed law may change a lot during the process, but, as Pope says, "any improvement in the system would be great." The bill's odds for passage may be slim, as 8,000 to 10,000 bills are submitted each year, and only 200 are passed by the Legislature. Despite the odds, the students remain hopeful.

The Spirit of Social Advocacy

The law reform group represents a renewed spirit of social advocacy emerging from some PBHA programs.

Drawing on their experience with the Small Claims Advisory Service, Pope and others have decided to try to make structural changes in the justice system to remedy the problems repeatedly challenging their clients.

"We seek out the problems they face, get them through them, and then try to prevent them from happening again," says Executive Director Orsini.

Prevention is the driving force behind another SCAS program that began recently.

Through the Community Outreach program, volunteers visit lower-income communities to give presentations on topics such as landlord-tenant rights or consumer issues. Students hope the information they share will help some people avoid the Small Claims Court system. Plans are underway for presentations in Spanish and Chinese to groups served by other PBHA committees, such as Partners for Empowering Neighborhoods.

Across Harvard, students seem more attracted to issues and activities involving social advocacy, says former PBHA president Andrew Ehrlich '97.

"In the last year alone, I certainly have seen a much greater interest," he says. Within PBHA, five programs have begun an informal advocacy association that includes environmental action and animal welfare groups. They meet occasionally to compare notes and share ideas.

Founded almost 100 years ago as an organization dedicated to "piety, charity and hospitality," PBHA has always had a twofold mission of social service and social action, but the pendulum has swung back and forth over time.

"In the past, social activism has played a greater role in PBHA activities," notes current president Roy Bahat '98. But, he adds, "we strive for interaction and balance between social service and social activism. We're getting to the point where they're both strong, and they work together."

"We're all working toward a more just society," says Orsini. However, the law reform project is not a political group, he explains. "Our agenda is directly linked to the needs of our clients. We attempt to serve the community by helping socially and economically disadvantaged people gain control over their own lives."

To reach the Small Claims Advisory Service, call 497-5690.