In a recent case the plaintiff was suing for non-reimbursed ER expenses of $144 and pain & suffering. She said he beat her 15-18 days of the month, although she went to the ER only once. Clinic visits were covered by insurance.
He said he didn’t beat her that much and she only went to the ER once and she deserved it as she was all up in his face.
Judge Joe gave her the $144, disallowed the pain & suffering and awarded her $4866 punitive damages.
He made the punitive damages non-dischargeable in bankruptcy.
I know a sitting judge can do this, can an Arbitrator? Judge Joe frequently mentions hes an arbitrator in this setting.
From my reading of previous threads on TV judges , did that make any difference? The show would pay the judgement anyway.
Who the hell cares what happens on a fake trash-tv show? It’s not real, ferchrissakes.
And it’s lovely to meet you, too, tarpal. :rolleyes:
Well, when I saw the title of this topic, and this being the STRAIGHT DOPE board, I assumed it would be discussion of just what a fraud and a mockery of the justice system these types of shows are. These “judge judy”, “judge joe brown”, etc people are NOT real judges. They are not hearing real cases. Everyone’s just an actor except the occasional “real” plaintiff who is chosen becuase he or she has agreed to behave as outrageously as possible. This board doesn’t tend to attrace intellectual slouches, I’m surprised that anyone here would post an actual episode of one of these shows and expect to be taken seriously. What’s next, an analysis of Jerry Springer’s latest?
Tarpal…
It is customary on these boards that when you post something as fact, you should have a cite to back up your claim. Do you have a cite that says the people on these judge shows are actors?
Umm…yeah. Back to the OP…
It is my understanding that the defendant on these types of shows is never really responsible for a ruling against him or her. The producers of the show pay each of the participants $xxx for appearing, and the judgement to the victor.
That being said, I don’t understand what talking about making the debt non-dischargeable in bankruptcy is all about. Possibly just smoke and mirrors.
Another thread on a similar topic is located here . Of course, things could be totally different on Judge Joe Brown than on The Peoples’ Court, in which case I am talking out my ass. 
Tarpal, you don’t know what you are talking about. All of the cases, and all of the participants, on Judge Joe Brown, as well as The People’s Court and Judge Judy are real. They are not actors. The producers cull the cases from the calendars of small claims courts in Los Angeles and New York. Parties to small claims suits are invited to dismiss the action if they will agree to legally binding arbitrarion on the TV show, using the same laws and court rules that would pertain if they had continued in court. The incentive is that the show will pay out any award from a pot of money allocated to each case, and then divide the remaining money between the litigants.
I stand by my post.
All of the participants in these shows are chosen according to the degree of histrionics they agree in advance to perform in the fake “courtroom”. They are PAID to have hissy fits on-camera.
The “verdicts” in these cases are NOT legally binding. And the judges are simply actors, also chosen according to how provocative and outragously they behave.
Have a cite for your claim, tarpal?
I actually know two different people who have appeared on People’s Court both back in the Wopner days. Is your claim also that Ed Koch is just an actor? What about the guy whose name escapes me but he was a judge and a boxing referee? Both of them have years of public life and even you have to admit aren’t actors.
I know for a fact that the People’s Court litigants are real. It’s true that the “judges” are really acting in the capacity of arbitrators but the dispute is real and the decision is binding. They do pay the award out of a pot provided by the producers of the show. It’s also true that the cases aren’t random, they try to choose cases that would make for the best theater.
Haj
tarpal, great. Do you have a cite? As a fan of People’s Court and Judge Judy myself, I would be interested in whatever facts you could present.
Judith Scheindlin (Judge Judy) was a judge in New York’s Family Court from 1982 to her retirement in 1996.
Joe Brown served as a judge of the Shelby County Criminal Courts in Memphis, Tennessee, from 1990 until April 2000.
Right. She retired, and is not currently a sitting judge. She is now simply an actress paid to behave as outragously as possible.
Right. He retired, and is not currently a sitting judge. He is now simply an actor, paid to behave as outragously as possible.
Joseph Wapner, the first judge on The People’s Court, was a real California Superior Court judge, and sat pro tem on California appellate court. He authored a very famous decision regarding the admissibility of confessions against co-defendents.
Judith Sheindlin, “Judge Judy” was a assistant District Attorney in Manhattan, hired by the legendary Frank Hogan in 1972 to work juvenile delinquency cases. In 1982, New York Mayor Ed Koch appointed her to the Family Court bench, where she presided until her 1996 retirement.
Ed Koch, the current People’s Court judge, as mentioned above, served as Mayor of New York City from 1978 to 1989. He was previously a U.S. Congressman for nine years, and a New York City councilman. Although he never sat on the bench, he was admitted to the New York bar in 1948, and practiced law until his first term as councilman; he is currently a parner in Robinson Silverman Pearce Aronsohn & Berman.
They are, in other words, NOT Jerry Springer.
- Rick
The litigants sign an agreement before they appear on the show that they are participating in legally binding arbitration. Legally binding arbitration is a concept that exists in every state, and has been around long before court television shows. It is often used in labor disputes.
Citation:
“The litigants who come before [Judge Judy] know her decisions are legally binding and final.”
They’re neither. Ever hear of appelate court? No self-respecting jurist would uphold any decision made by these hollywood buffoons.
Part of the concept of legally binding arbitration is that the decision is final, and that it cannot be legally appealed, unless it can be shown that the rules of arbitration had not been followed.
Citation:
http://library.lp.findlaw.com/alternativedisputeresolution_1_7_1.html
"But, what about the right to appeal? Well, there is isn’t one. Arbitration is essentially set in granite and there are very few grounds for overturning it. This prevents further attorney’s fees in making motions for new trial, appeals, judgments notwithstanding the verdict, and other unnecessary proceedings.
Then the show should be called “Joe Bob’s legally binding arbitration”. Or “The People’s Legally Binding Arbitration”. Not court. Not judges. Not real. Period.
tarpal, can you cite a specific decision made by, for example, Judge Judy, that an appellate court would have overturned?
To partially side with tarpal, I think the current shows have drifted pretty far from the original People’s Court, and have added gimmicks that you would never find in regular courts or arbitration. The original People’s Court was run pretty closely to actual small claims court procedures, and was pretty educational. The judge had firm control over the cases, kept out extraneous stuff, and generally explained his reasoning and the legal principles involved.
At some point the producers apparently decided that “all that legal stuff is boring”, the result being that most of the rulings now appear to be fairly arbitrary, with little explanation of their legal underpinnings. Also, in the original People’s Court you often had cases, as in a real small claims court, that only lasted a few minutes, because the case was so straight forward. Now the standard seems to be for the show to get as much drama as possible out of each case, so the plaintiffs are allowed to ramble on attacking each other for long periods of time over topics that have no bearing on the case, and never would have been included in a real court case or formal arbitration. And of course some of the newer “court” shows are nothing more than morality plays – “you are sentenced to call your mother more often”.
The only recent show that I found educational was “Power of Attorney”, which generally followed standard court procedures (if you ignore the fact that real small claims cases don’t have high-priced attorneys cross-examining witnesses). However, that show is off the air. So all the current shows that I am aware of, IMHO, are mainly designed for entertainment, and provide an incomplete, and sometimes inaccurate, idea about how a small claims court is run.
Bricker asked:
If I could beg leave to make a friend-of-the-court submission, I found an archived copy of a New York Post article from a couple years back, Judge Judy Overturned by Brooklyn Family Court.
I agree that Joe Wapner’s legal explanations were much more extensive than his successors’, and his calm and reasonable application of the law is sorely lacking in today’s court shows.
That said, a lower court doesn’t necessarily have to articulate the reasons behind its rulings or findings. Doing so, of course, can often prevent a reversal by an appellate court, and leaving reasons unexplained is often good ammunition for an appellate brief to claim that the trial judge abused his discretion.
Since there is no appellate route for the Judge Judy litigants, there’s less reason to articulate the basis of legal rulings. Often, Judge Judy will snap, “I don’t want to hear what someone told you…” That may seem arbitrary to the viewing public, and those with no patience for the idiot parties perhaps will cheer her on… but she’s actually ruling, correctly, against the admission of hearsay evidence.
whitetho mentions a case in which Judge Judy was “overturned”. That’s not exactly what I was looking for. In the linked case, the “real” judge correctly gace no weight whatsoever to the purported order from Judge Judy’s court, since it had no subjetc matter jurisdiction. Since the objection from tarpal was:
[quote]
Ever hear of appelate court? No self-respecting jurist would uphold any decision made by these hollywood buffoons** I was seeking to determine what decisions from Judge Judy would have been overturned on the merits of the decision. If she had been a sitting Family Court judge, the decision in the linked case does not strike me as being an abuse of discretion; its only flaw was that she had no authority to make it. tarpal seems to contend that her decisions are routinely unsound, not that she’s without jurisdiction to make them. I’m looking for a case that. if decided the same way by a “real” judge, would be overturned on appeal.
- Rick