To understand how easily a single debt can upend someone’s life, consider this story: Pam has a job in Tennessee that pays double the minimum wage, but years ago, she had a medical bill that she was unable to pay. Eventually she was sued for that debt, but she missed her court date because she was at work. And because she was a no-show, the judge had no choice but to issue a default judgment against her and side with the debt collector.
The court ordered that Pam’s wages be garnished, meaning her employer was required to withhold 25% of her paycheck each week and send it to the court to pay toward her debt. That was a big financial hit, so Pam (her name has been changed to help protect her privacy) sought more information and learned that, under Tennessee law, she could set up a payment plan. She filed a motion with the court to do just that, and this time, her creditor was the no-show at the court hearing. The judge granted her motion.
So far, so good. But when Pam went to the clerk’s office at the courthouse to have the already-garnished wages released, or returned to her, she learned that her employer hadn’t actually sent the court the money it had withheld from her paycheck, says Maeghan Jones, president and CEO of the Community Foundation of Greater Chattanooga, a philanthropic organization that tries to address the root causes of local problems. The department at Pam’s company that oversaw wage garnishment wasn’t reachable by phone, so she would have to email them and then wait. But every hour that she spent back at the court trying to get her situation resolved was another hour when she wasn’t working and wasn’t being paid.
Research by The Pew Charitable Trusts in 2020 found that 1 in 4 civil cases in the U.S. is a debt collection case. The research also showed that in 7 out of 10 of the debt collection cases, the person being sued doesn’t show up to court. That’s sometimes because of work obligations, or child care challenges—or often because they don’t even realize they’re being sued, either because they didn’t receive notice or didn’t understand the notice they received from the court. The lawsuits are often filed by companies that have purchased debt from other businesses and medical firms, and it’s usually the debt collection company name on the lawsuit, which can confuse people who don’t recognize it as being a business they owe money.
“In both civil and criminal matters, people often miss important filing deadlines or their court dates because the legal process creates barriers to their participation or to understanding the consequences of missing court,” says Pew’s Erika J. Rickard, who oversaw the research.
As a result, more than 70% of debt lawsuits end just as Pam’s case did—in a default judgment, which means an automatic win for the plaintiff when the defendant doesn’t show up in court or otherwise participate in their own case.
Her story is just one example of how daunting navigating state and local courts can be at a time when court systems around the nation are swelling with cases.
“Every minute of every business day, state and local courts process more than 600 new cases,” Rickard explains. That’s more than 36,000 new cases each hour.
A new analysis by Pew further illustrates this. It shows that in 2022, state and local courts in the U.S. handled 66 million cases—far more than the annual number of arrests (8 million) and traffic stops (20 million) combined.
And with numbers like this, and the speed with which courts must operate just to keep up, it’s easy to see why trying to navigate the system, particularly without a lawyer, can be challenging. For some people, that has meant having their lives upended by the courts.
Anna, a young woman in Michigan, knows this all too well. Her state tax refund was seized, and her wages were suddenly being garnished—and she had no idea why. Anna tried to get to the bottom of what was happening, but she couldn’t get answers from the court, explains Jennifer Bentley, executive director of the Michigan State Bar Foundation.
Anna was one of the 30 million Americans each year who try to tackle their civil court cases without an attorney. Eventually, she got help from a legal aid lawyer and learned about a company that claimed she owed it money and that, because of this debt, a default judgment had been entered against her a decade earlier—when she was 11 years old.
The creditor had already collected $2,600 from Anna—between her tax refund and her garnished wages—but the legal aid program was able to prove that the debt was not Anna’s, and as a result, the creditor was ordered to return her money.
“They had the wrong person,” Bentley says, adding that the default judgment was likely intended for someone with a similar name.
State and local courts may be bursting at the seams—and yet somehow, they also seem to fly under the radar, says Pew’s Ruth Rosenthal.
“The courts get a lot of attention at the federal level, particularly related to the Supreme Court and federal judicial appointments,” Rosenthal says. “But more than 95% of cases in this country are adjudicated in state and local courts, and they get very little scrutiny—even though they impact so many of our lives.”
Rickard and Rosenthal, who are both attorneys, lead Pew’s courts and communities project, which is working with partner organizations including the Community Foundation of Greater Chattanooga—which helped Pam navigate her day in court—and the Michigan State Bar Foundation.
The project, Rickard says, is not seeking to help people avoid their debts but to ensure a better process. “The project seeks to reshape the relationship between state courts and communities by promoting policies that reduce unnecessary interactions with courts and improve those interactions that are necessary; reduce costs on people and communities; and reduce racial, ethnic, and economic disparities,” she says.
Rosenthal adds, “Part of what we’re doing is asking the question: How do state courts impact people’s lives, and are they serving their highest and best purpose?” And if not, she says, “is there a better way to do things so that our communities are best situated to thrive?”
The problem isn’t just the sheer number of cases that courts face every day. What’s needed, Rickard says, are data-driven ways to streamline and modernize the courts, thereby improving everyone’s access to the justice system.
Just how outdated is the state court system overall, compared with other aspects of modern life?
Picture this, says Tennessee Circuit Court Judge Alex McVeagh: “Think about an operating room from the 1900s, and then think about an operating room today—keep that visual in your head. Now picture a courthouse from the 1900s,” McVeagh says. “In the majority of courthouses across this country, that courthouse looks the same today” as it did back then.
“Certainly, we have institutions and procedures that stand the test of time,” he adds. “But unlike in other industries, the judicial system has not really modernized and innovated with the times. And so—with that visual in mind—I think you can see a lot of the modern-day problems that we face in such a system.” Modern-day problems, he says, that include a high failure-to-appear rate, for example—the rate at which defendants don’t show up for their court dates.
Pew’s courts and community project works alongside judges, lawyers, court staff, and others who recognize the need to modernize and streamline the court process, including McVeagh.
“The courthouse is still a black box for many individuals today,” he says. “And our work with Pew has tried to shine a light into that black box for individuals in trying to get them to participate in the court process—and also obviously to tweak a lot of our systems to help make sure justice is done.”
McVeagh has had some success. A few years ago, Tennessee was named one of the states with the highest per-capita medical debt—confirming what he was seeing in the court system.
“Small claims court is used as the debt collector for a lot of hospitals and medical providers,” he says. And in his own court, “medical debt collection cases are quite high. The judgment rate is very high.” And what makes medical debt different from other consumer debt is that people often have no choice in taking it on, unlike, say, the purchase of a new car.
So, in Hamilton County, which includes Chattanooga, “we said, what if we tried to help the debtor and the hospital engage before a lawsuit was filed”—a process that could benefit them both. “So we came up with a prelawsuit online portal, and it’s one of the first in the country.”
“We link up the patient and the medical provider and we provide them with a pro bono mediator. And they engage in mobile phone mediation, text mediation, Zoom mediation sessions if they like.” And “this kind of prelawsuit engagement has had some significant results,” McVeagh says, pointing to recent data showing that among people with medical debt in Hamilton County who were invited and agreed to participate in the online dispute resolution pilot program, 72% were able to get on track to resolve their outstanding debt—without a trial.
Rickard underscores the importance of the online mediation happening “before a case is filed, which is something that we haven’t seen very much of around the country.” She calls it “a really interesting idea for the court to be the sponsor of this process” and for the debtor and the medical provider “to be able to come to a resolution, but without it being a fully fledged court case that comes with a court judgment and enforcement power at the end of the experience.”
In other states where Pew has worked with partners to help modernize the courts, progress is being made to make the courts more accessible, more streamlined, and more fair.
Bentley, of the Michigan State Bar Foundation, is also a commissioner for the state’s Justice for All Commission, which says it is committed to expanding access and improving the quality of the civil legal justice system for all the state’s residents. Shortly after it was created in 2021, Justice for All began working with Pew in its efforts to reach that goal.
“Pew has helped us with data collection and data analysis, with both debt collection and eviction cases,” she says, adding that Pew has “also helped develop a way to evaluate whether changes that are made are successful.”
“Pew has really helped us make data-informed decisions,” Bentley says. “Because Pew has been working in several states on reform issues for the court system, it is able to see what is working and what is not and to assist [other] states to make recommendations that might help improve their own civil justice system.”
Pew’s Rosenthal recently got an up-close view of a court process in need of modernization.
A family member parked on a street in Montgomery County, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C., and paid the meter. Upon returning a half hour later, the family member found a ticket on the windshield. Rosenthal’s relative wasn’t concerned, though, because they had used an app to pay. “So luckily they had proof,” Rosenthal says.
In many cities, there’s an online portal where you upload your documentation, Rosenthal notes, “and generally they’ll just dismiss it online. But in Montgomery County, that doesn’t exist. The only option is to set your case for trial.
“I tried to help them find a way to provide the evidence, to get the case dismissed, and couldn’t find a quick or easy way to do that.” So her family member asked for a trial date. Then a letter came in the mail that Rosenthal says essentially had this message: We know you want to set your case for trial, but we’re really backed up, so if you want, you can just pay the $45. If not, we’ll eventually send you a trial date.
More than six months after parking legally but getting a ticket anyway, there’s still no trial date assigned.
Not being able to simply show proof of payment online is “a prime example of the way the court system becomes overly complicated and cumbersome for something that you should just be able to resolve easily and quickly,” Rosenthal says. “And that can contribute to people losing confidence in the ability of the courts to effectively administer justice.”
Using technology to modernize court systems—whether it’s an online portal to try to reach an agreement about medical debt pretrial, or something simpler like an easy way to upload information from a parking app to resolve a ticket given in error—can have a huge effect.
In Tennessee, Judge McVeagh says the most successful court reform that he’s been a part of involves text messages.
“We implemented text messaging reminders in our criminal courts here in Hamilton County and that’s been the single most significant change that has decreased the number of criminal ‘failure to appears,’” he says.
He says that across other courts are beginning to use text messaging, with success as well. Often, it’s as simple as reminding someone by text that they are scheduled to appear in court the next day.
“It’s common sense,” McVeagh says, adding that it’s just like the text messages from your dentist’s office reminding you about an appointment.
As Rickard notes, in the end, successful court reforms can reduce pressure on judges, help resolve cases more effectively, and ultimately reduce disparities in case outcomes. And that, she says, “helps serve justice for all.”
Kathleen Cahill is a Maryland-based writer and a previous contributor to Trust.
