Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T19:44:40.504Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Public Ordering of Private Relations: Part One: Initiating Civil Cases in Urban Trial Courts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

Craig Wanner
Craig Wanner*
Affiliation:
Jersey City State College
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

People and organizations make demands on the civil courts to settle their disputes, enforce the performance of obligations, and direct the redistribution of resources. Although the potential number of users of civil court proceedings would seem to be as numerous as individuals and organizations in a society, only some individuals and some groups use the civil courts. Furthermore, from the entire catalogue of remedies provided by law, users differentially present matters for litigation. Not all types of legal actions are demanded. Nor are the most frequent plaintiffs the most frequent defendants; some litigants predominate as plaintiffs, while others appear most often as defendants. Because of this nonrandom appearance of litigants and subjects of litigation, civil courts of first instance are daily exposed to claims of some, but not all of the people. The object of this paper is to locate and describe the principal users of the civil court system and the matters these users want adjudicated.

Type
Research Article
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 8 , Issue 3 , Spring 1974 , pp. 421 - 440
Copyright
Copyright © The Law and Society Association, 1974.

Footnotes

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I gratefully acknowledge the criticism of Professors J. W. Howard of Johns Hopkins University, Marc Galanter of S.U.N.Y. at Buffalo and Lucinda Long of Montclair State College. I also wish to thank Dean William Maxwell and Mr. Philip Wallack of Jersey City State College for their support. A sequel to this article will deal with the dispositions of cases in the sample.

References

BLACK, Henry C. (1957) Black's Law Dictionary (4th Edition). St. Paul, Minnesota: West Publishing Company.Google Scholar
DOLBEARE, Kenneth (1967) Trial Courts in Urban Politics. New York: John Wiley and Sons.Google Scholar
HAKMAN, Nathan (1969) 'The Supreme Court's Political Environment: The Processing of Non-Commercial Litigations“ in Joel, GROSSMAN and J., TANNENHAUS (eds.), Frontiers of Judicial Research. New York: John Wiley and Sons.Google Scholar
J., TANNENHAUS (1966) “Lobbying the Supreme Court—An Appraisal of Political Science Folklore,” 35 Fordham Law Review 15.Google Scholar
KEETON, Robert (1969) Venturing to Do Justice: Reforming Private Law. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
ROSS, H. Laurence (1969) Settled Out of Court: The Social Process of Insurance Claims Adjustment. Chicago: Aldine Press.Google Scholar
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION (1970) Automobile Accident Litigation. Washington, D. C: Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
VOSE, Clement (1966) “Interest Groups, Judicial Review, and Local Government,” 19 Western Political Quarterly 85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
WANNER, Craig (1973) A Harvest of Profits: Exploring the Symbiotic Relationship Between Urban Trial Courts and the Business Community. Presented at the 68th Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association in New Orleans.Google Scholar
WILSON, James Q. and Edward C., BANFIELD (1964) “Public-Regardedness As a Value Premise in Voting Behavior,” 58 American Political Science Review 876.CrossRefGoogle Scholar