Demanding a Day, or a Say, in Court for Life’s Conflicts

Mr. Kivowitz had this problem.

Here he had amassed 80,000 frequent-flier miles with United Airlines and had used them to take an 11-hour trip, but when the in-flight movie began, his individual viewing screen remained blank.

Every seat on the plane was filled, so he couldn’t move to another, and what was he supposed to do to pass the time? Walk up and down the aisle for 11 hours? Somebody was going to pay for this.

But if Mr. Kivowitz thought he had a problem, he should have walked a mile in Mr. Ben-Levy’s shoes.

Mr. Ben-Levy had given a certain woman a tryout at his business, and even lent her money. And how had she paid him back? By not paying him back. And by running up his phone bill calling a 900-number psychic.

Yet Mr. Ben-Levy’s problem, though considerable, was like a gnat compared to Mr. Lee’s.

Mr. Lee had brought his Windstar to a Ford dealership for its 60,000-mile maintenance, and just 12 days later the van had blown its head gasket. This had happened, Mr. Lee felt sure, because somebody at the dealership hadn’t put engine coolant back in the radiator after servicing it. Now he was stuck with a repair bill for $2,395.64, and it was plain to see that Ford owed him big time.

Such problems--not catastrophes, but niggling, maddening problems--never stop flowing at Van Nuys Municipal Court’s Small Claims Division 114. Here the molten stuff of petty conflict and quotidian woe are laid before the stately edifice of the law to be cooled into the slag of resolution.

Or as much resolution as a small claims court anywhere can offer, given that successful plaintiffs must figure out for themselves how to collect on whatever judgments the court gives them.

On the seventh floor of the courthouse, high above the teeming ordinariness, Commissioner Martin Green sorts through the angers and disappointments from soured agreements, unfulfilled commercial promises, personal checks that proved to be of a more elastic substance than paper. Always he looks for proof, the hard evidence that speaks more persuasively than the most impassioned account of ill treatment.

Seventy such cases pass before the imperturbable Green each working day. He seeks to dispose of each in 10 minutes or less.

Lawyers are not allowed in small claims court--a bit of wisdom not yet extended to higher courts--except as plaintiffs or defendants. No claim may exceed $5,000, and most are for far less.

Mr. Kivowitz pleaded his case against United Airlines in re the movieless video screen. He wished to be compensated “for services not provided.” Five thousand dollars, he said, ought to take care of things.

“Given the state of Hollywood today,” Green wondered, “are you sure you missed out on anything?”

The man from United Airlines insisted that the only contractual responsibility the airline had after Mr. Kivowitz acquired his ticket was to transport him “from Point A to Point B.” Movies were merely a courtesy. Moreover, he said, the airline had already given Mr. Kivowitz a $250 travel voucher for his loss.

Green pondered the problem.

“To be honest, sir,” he told Mr. Kivowitz, “I doubt that your case is worth $250. If you want to hold onto the travel voucher, I’ll dismiss the case. So, do you want to keep the travel voucher or roll the dice?”

Mr. Kivowitz pondered this new problem.

“I will have to keep the travel voucher,” he said, “based on what you just told me.”

Mr. Ben-Levy, a small man in a royal blue velvet sport coat, had his turn. He asked to be compensated for $650 in telephone bills and loans he made to the certain woman, who was not present in court.

“Do you have a promissory note?” Green asked. “Is she your girlfriend? Is she . . .?”

“She was a prospective employee,” Mr. Ben-Levy said. He handed a canceled check to the bailiff, who handed it to Green.

“But this check’s not made out to her at all,” Green said, “but rather to . . .”

“But on the memo line, it says her name, see? On the memo line.”

“Please,” Green said to Mr. Ben-Levy, “let me finish a sentence. We have a chance of getting somewhere if you let me finish a sentence.”

Mr. Ben-Levy continued: “Also, she had phone abuse. Instead of sitting and working, she called a psychic. She called her parents and friends in Massachusetts.”

Green pondered the problem. “OK,” he said at last. “You’ll receive a judgment in the mail.”

*

When it was time for him, Mr. Lee stood calmly at the plaintiff’s table, hands folded in front of him. About 10 days after he had fetched his Windstar from the Ford dealership, he noticed that the temperature gauge was registering higher than usual. Someone told him this was normal after a major servicing, “but then it blew up,” he said.

“Someone told you?” Green asked. “Who was this someone?”

“Just someone. A customer in my restaurant.”

Mr. Lee went on to say that after the head gasket blew, he had the van towed to a mechanic, who told him there was no coolant in the radiator. The only answer, he said, was that someone at Ford hadn’t put any in.

“That can’t be,” Green said. “Otherwise you couldn’t have driven it for 10 days. What is Ford’s side of the case?”

The man from Ford hitched up his trousers. “That is our case,” he said.

Green drummed his fingers on copies of the repair orders while pondering the problem. He decided to take the case “under submission,” give it more thought and mail his decision to the parties.

He figured they would accept it calmly, whatever it was. “Sometimes I think they’re not all that concerned with my ruling,” he confided. “Mostly they just want their day in court to vent their spleen.”