The convergence of the articles in this issue is the happy product of independent research upon two problems of widespread concern. Warren and Hiday examine civil commitment of the mentally ill in very different jurisdictions: urban California and rural North Carolina. Yet as Monahan suggests, in his synthetic overview, their data and analysis tend to point in similar directions. Steele surveys the literature on dispute processes and indicates how Hannigan, on the one hand, and Best and Andreasen, on the other, pursue complementary approaches to the study of consumer grievances and remedies. The present format has two advantages: the individual scholar retains the choice of topic and method, but research is still cumulative. I hope to encounter like conjunctions in the future.

Civil commitment recently has come to replace the insanity defense as the most controversial issue in mental health law. While the resident population of state mental hospitals has plummeted in the past decade, cries that commitment be abolished altogether are heard with no decrease in fervor. Many others feel that the pendulum has swung too far, that patients' rights and community care have been seized upon by fiscally conservative legislatures to cease providing any care at all to mentally disordered persons.

One hundred persons who were committed involuntarily to mental hospitals on 72-hour holds under California's Lanterman-Petris-Short Act (1967), and who filed writs of habeas corpus, were observed during petition hearings. Involuntary commitment criteria were frequently “bargained down” from dangerous to others, dangerous to self, and gravely disabled during the 72-hour hold to gravely disabled at the petition hearing. Most frequently used criteria for continued hospitalization as gravely disabled included prior hospitalization, refusal to take medication, and failure to cooperate with the hospital system. Persons adjudged dangeros to self were generally suicidal in action or talk. Although a minority of persons judged at the petition hearing to be dangerous to others were assaultive or threatening, evidence for the imminence and seriousness of dangerousness was not offered.

Court proceedings and records were analyzed to evaluate statutory reform of mental commitment procedure in one state with a typical statute. A marked improvement over practice described in previous research was found: court proceedings were not rapid and perfunctory. However, the court still often deferred to psychiatric opinion even when a preponderance of evidence showed it to be unsubstantiated.

The two articles that follow contribute to the mapping of dispute behavior in contemporary society. Hannigan (1977) describes how a newpaper action line, or ombudsman, handles consumer disputes. Best and Andreasen (1977) report the findings of their survey of consumer experiences and what consumers did about the problems they encountered. These essays represent complementary approaches to the study of how people and institutions respond to common consumer disputes. I will begin by indicating where they fit into the evolving tradition of sociolegal research and how they add to our still redimentary understanding of dispute behavior.

This paper reports the results of a survey of 282 clients of Sound Off, a Canadian newspaper ombudsman. The data suggest that the newspaper ombudsman works best as a communication “facilitator” but is less effective as a dispute “mediator.” Furthermore, this service was found to be of least benefit to the socially advantaged who appear to use it to pursue more difficult problems. Nevertheless, 73 percent of the respondents indicated that they would use this “action line” service again if the need arose.

A survey of consumer reactions to common purchases was conducted in 1975. Consumers perceive problems with many products and services, and voice complaints concerning about one-third of those problems. Third-party complaint processors play a very small role in buyer-seller disputes. Household status and type of problem influence perception of problems and choice of action or inaction. Satisfactory resolutions occur in somewhat more than half of voiced complaint cases. To increase voicing and fair handling of complaints, procedural changes at the buyer-seller level are suggested; to improve treatment of complaints that are not resolved at the buyer-seller level, improvements in community small claims courts are suggested.