Chief justice wants courts modernized> Business owners urged to prod Legislature for funding hike

BANGOR — Maine’s chief justice told area business owners Thursday that they were getting the short end of the stick in Maine’s courts, and urged them to pressure the Legislature to increase funding to help modernize the antiquated system.

The underfunding of Maine’s courts has resulted in the “rationing of justice,” with criminal cases taking priority and virtually pushing civil cases out of the courts or preventing them from being heard in a timely manner, said Chief Justice Daniel E. Wathen.

Wathen is on a mission to convince the new Legislature that it should provide the $300,000 to $400,000 a year it would take to automate the court system.

On Thursday morning he spoke at a business breakfast meeting at Husson College and attempted to convince business owners that it would be in their best interest to help him reach his goal.

Because of the pressure of criminal cases and other types of cases, there were only 138 civil jury trials held in the state last year, he said, which accounts only for about 2 percent of the total civil cases that are filed with the court.

“If you think of the time and expense involved for business in the repetitive preparation of each case, it is hard to imagine a more expensive and wasteful system. … The overburdened process becomes your punishment and forces you to a course of action you would not accept if you had access to a fast, fair, affordable and effective court system,” Wathen said.

He also touched on the problems with Maine’s small claims system, which is commonly used by the business community to reclaim debts of up to $3,000.

In 1990 the court system handled 30,000 small claims cases at a cost of $15 for each filing. That fee netted the state’s general fund $450,000. In an effort to increase revenue, the state increased the filing fee to $30 and by 1993 only 10,000 cases were filed, resulting in a revenue reduction.

The court also ceased its service of serving the papers on the debtor. Today it is the responsibility of the creditor to do so.

“When you continuously add new responsibilities to the court system, whether in the area of crime and drug abuse, or in domestic violence and child abuse, and at the same time provide the courts with even less resources, something has to give. In this case it was the small claims process that was sacrificed for the benefit of the criminal and domestic docket. Maine business has paid and is paying for this forced reallocation of court resources,” Wathen said.

Justice Paul Rudman also said Thursday that it was time to acknowledge that the court system was not working as well as it should, and that the business community was taking more than its fair share of the rationing that was going on.

The increased small claims fee and the subsequent reduction in cases filed with the court indicate that “we are providing the public with less service for more money,” said Rudman.

Wathen said that for a “modest investment” the state could modernize the court system and “leapfrog from the quill pen to a system of automated management and information.”

The $200 million of the $30 billion crime bill designated to go to the country’s court systems will barely make a dent in the crisis-riddled system, according to Rudman, who noted that the $200 million was to be spread out over six years and 50 states.

Wathen said the answer to the overburdening would include such measures as single-judge assignment, more judge time, longer civil trial sessions, automated record keeping and scheduling.

Wathen reminded the group of the words in Maine’s Constitution: “Right and justice shall be administered freely and without sale, completely and without denial, promptly and without delay.”

“I’m here today to warn you that this basic and important constitutional promise is not being met,” he said.