According to an analysis by the nonprofit New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG), the New York city court is the slowest in the state to conclude litigation of any degree, even small claims, with an average of 14 months elapsing from the time of filing charges to final resolution. This slowness causes New Yorkers to forgo filing a complaint or seeking compensation, so much so that while 90,000 small claims were filed in 1997, only 25,000 were processed in 2022.
The study looked at 47,000 lawsuits filed in the 13 most populous counties between the beginning of 2022 and March 2024. In Queens, the 7,330 cases filed took more than 14 months to resolve, compared to a state average of five and a half months; the Bronx’s 4,800 were concluded in nine months; Brooklyn’s 8,500 took about eight and a half months; Manhattan’s 6,387 took about seven months; and Staten Island’s 1,448 took about four and a half months.
Brooklyn, Manhattan, and the Bronx recorded the longest first hearing wait times in the entire state at about six months after the complaint was filed.
The length of the process discourages New Yorkers from filing small claims, which are usually less than $10,000 and mostly involve lawsuits to recover security deposits.
Gothamist, who first reported the analysis, interviewed NYPIRG Consumer Justice Attorney Kyle Giller, who contributed to the research. “Regular people who need to use small claims court to recover money that they’re owed are not getting the justice that they seek because of how long these small claims cases take. If more attention is paid to small claims court, and more funding is provided to this part of the court system that has really been overlooked for a very long time, we can actually make these cases move faster and restore people’s faith in the court system.”
As Giller argues, the main problem may be affordability. Due to a lack of funds, no new staff is often hired in the courts. Gothamist confirmed this version by attributing the slowness to the shortage of court officials. The websites of the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Staten Island courts report that only one judge handles small claims. By contrast, in Queens, there are two, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Still too few for the amount of complaints being filed.
