In my jurisdiction, the small-claims complaint is just a form you fill out by hand, and the defendant does not respond until the initial hearing. The date is set when the Defendant is served. I filed in mid-July and my hearing is mid-August. I have no idea when the trial will be, though.
I learned this after I blew an afternoon drafting a complaint. :smack:
I definitely would NOT want to have a retired or unqualified judge in exchange for a quicker trial date. Even if I lose, I’d rather know that it was because I was wrong all along.
Sure, in an ideal world you could just walk into a DMV, head to the counter, and have your issues dealt with immediately. But the people behind those counters have to be paid, and that money has to come from somewhere. If you want shorter lines (or no lines at all) at the DMV, you’re going to have to raise taxes and/or raise fees for things like drivers licenses, registration, etc., etc. People complain every time taxes and fees like this are increased, and yet those same people often also complain that there are lines at the DMV. Go figure.
Well, as Oakminster has pointed out, there are specific procedural issues that would present a problem here. Also, is this retired judge going to sit on the bench for free? If not, who’s going to pay him or her?
One reason the backlog exists in the first place is that there aren’t enough people to deal with the cases at hand. And the reason there aren’t enough people is that the courts have a budget, and don’t have unlimited amounts of money to throw around. They don’t understaff courts just to piss you off; they have to work with limited resources, and unless you’re willing to increase those resources the problem is unlikely to go away.