Specific Documents in New York State Court Litigation
I have represented clients in several different courts. In doing so, I have learned that every court has some practices that are unique to that court. Even in the federal court system, where there is a lot of uniformity, there is still some variation from district to district. Since I have handled a lot of cases in New York State courts, I thought I would share my experience with certain documents that appear in my home state’s courts that I have not seen in federal courts.
Why should you read this post about specific documents in New York State Court Litigation?
You filed a lawsuit in Queens but nothing happened and you don’t know why.
Your adversary filed a Note of Issue and you think it has to do with a new edition of a magazine.
The title of this blog post was so exciting you could not resist clicking and reading and telling all of your friends.
Image credit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_County_Courthouse#/media/File:New_York_State_Supreme_Courthouse_60_Centre_Street_from_southwest.jpg
RJIs, or Requests for Judicial Intervention
People file a lot of lawsuits in New York. The court system does not bother assigning the lawsuits to a judge unless a party really needs a judge to decide something. Otherwise, the court system will let people file a lawsuit and worry about serving it or negotiating a settlement without getting a judge involved. This is, in part, because there are many lawsuits that get resolved or abandoned on their own before a judge needs to be involved, and so the court system does not bother involving a judge who doesn’t need to do anything.
At some point, however, a party will need a judge if the case does not settle. Maybe the plaintiff needs a preliminary injunction. Or the plaintiff wants a default judgment because the defendant did not answer the complaint. It could also be that the defendant wants a judge to decide her motion to dismiss the lawsuit. That is when a party makes a “request for judicial intervention” or an “RJI.”
The party who needs the judge fills out the RJI form (which often can be done online) and pays a one-time fee. This fee is separate from the fee to start the lawsuit (people refer to that fee as the one that “buys an index number” and gets a unique case number assigned to the lawsuit). Once the RJI form is filed and the fee is paid, the case is assigned to a judge.
Once a judge is assigned, parties do not need to keep filing RJI forms every time they need a judge. It is a one-time thing.
Commercial Division Addendum
Early in a lawsuit, a litigant may file a form to request that the case be assigned to the Commercial Division. The Commercial Division is a part of the New York State Supreme Court that handles commercial disputes. It has separate judges and some special rules.
Many litigants prefer to be in the Commercial Division because they feel the judges are more sophisticated and accustomed to commercial disputes. These litigants may be hesitant to have a judge who spends a lot of time considering personal injury matters or automobile accident cases also handling their multimillion dollar bank agreement lawsuit. And while the Commercial Division is often very busy, it may be a little less crowded than the other parts of the court.
To have the Commercial Division hear a case, a litigant files a form that explains why the case meets the required criteria. One of the criteria is that the dispute has to be about more than a minimum threshold amount of money, which varies based on which county the case is filed in. In Manhattan, the threshold is $500,000. But in other parts of the state, like Albany, it may be as low as $50,000. Another is that the case has to be one of the types of commercial cases on a specific list of case types.
Preliminary Conference Order
If there is no motion pending, it could be that a judge does nothing automatically in a case. This is because, to a large degree, the New York court system permits litigants to handle the initial stages of a lawsuit themselves. As a result, some lawsuits linger without any progress for awhile.
At some point, either upon the request of a party, or on the court’s own initiative, the parties will need to file a schedule with the court with deadlines for when discovery will take place, when the parties will file certain motions, and when they anticipate being ready for trial. This schedule comes about when someone files an order requesting a preliminary conference.
In theory, this conference is a meeting with the judge to discuss a schedule for the case. But, in practice, the parties often agree on their own for a schedule and jointly submit it to the court. And frequently, the schedule changes and dates get pushed back further into the future.
Note of Issue
After discovery, one party may file a statement with the court stating that the case is ready for trial. This document is a “Note of Issue.” And once the court has this document, it may schedule a trial and also set dates for the other events that need to take place in advance of a trial, such as a pretrial conference and the deadline for submissions of witness lists.