Small Claims Court are the courts that exercise a limited jurisdiction over the civil cases in which two private litigants are involved. The courts that hear and try small claims cases are can have other functions as well and these courts may be known by names that vary with the jurisdiction. Some of the names of courts that try small claim suits are Magistrate's Court, county court etc. Apart from the United States of America, small claims Courts also prevail in countries like Canada, Ireland, Scotland, New Zealand and Hong Kong.
Small Claims Courts generally tries and hears the small disputes in which two private individuals are involved and only when there is no huge amount at stake. This is generally for the cases that are lesser than $5000. The other operations and area of jurisdiction of the Small Claims Court is in Collecting debts, evictions and also hearing and trial of disputes involving landlords and tenants. The Small Claims Court have a monetary limit on the total amount of judgments it is empowered to deliver; this generally vary from state to state. The Small Claims court sets the upper limit for the claims and the plaintiff cannot go beyond the limit that is offered by it.
Review Small Claims Court Forms and Rules
In the Small Claims Court, the court proceedings are generally kept under a strict monetary limit and the litigants try to represent themselves in the court instead of going in for a lawyer. The procedure for the case filing, hearing and trying is very simple. Trial by jury is not a common thing in the small claims court and it is also not possible to get injunctions or protective orders from this court easily. The Small Claims Court does not take up domestic relations cases and often these types of cases are dealt by the family Court.
All the small Claims Court in the United States of America maintain the court records. There are special officials designated for the purpose. Small Claims Court are considered to be public and this is the reason that one can access the records by submitting the application with the concerned Small Claims Court official. The Small Claims Court records generally contain information like the name of the litigants, claim amount etc. Small Claims Court records can be used to verify the background of an individual and other legal history.
The Small Claims County Court maintains even such records. Earlier the records for the cases that were heard and tried in the small claims court were maintained manually but with the introduction of computers, the digitization of the records started to take place. It is now possible to get access to any information cases details and day to day proceedings of the cases quickly. The method to retrieve the data for disbursal has become a lot faster and efficient.
