Letter Inquiring About Moving the Civil Court’s Docket onto NYSCEF

SUMMARY

The Civil Court Committee sent a letter to Chief Administrative Judge Joseph A. Zayas and Administrative Judge Shahabuddeen A. Ally to inquire about plans to move the entirety of Civil Court of the City of New York’s (Civil Court) dockets and case files onto the New York State Courts Electronic Filing (NYSCEF) system. “We believe such a move would represent a significant improvement to the Civil Court’s functions and should be a priority. The Civil Court has more cases on its docket than any non-family court in the entire state. In fact, many New Yorkers in their lifetimes are likely to encounter the New York state court system only in the Civil Courts and not in the Supreme or other courts.” The letter notes that the Housing Part of the Civil Court (Housing Court) docket and files were moved to NYSCEF and that moving the rest of the Civil Court docket, including Consumer Credit Transaction cases, to NYSCEF rather than relying exclusively on the current paper-only system would be beneficial both to court users and court staff.

REPORT

Hon. Joseph A. Zayas
Chief Administrative Judge
New York State Unified Court System
25 Beaver Street
New York, NY 10004

Hon. Shahabuddeen A. Ally
Administrative Judge
New York County Civil Court
111 Centre Street
New York, NY 10013

RE: Moving the Civil Court’s Docket onto NYSCEF

Dear Chief Administrative Judge Zayas and Administrative Judge Ally,

We hope this letter finds you well. We write on behalf of the New York City Bar Association’s Civil Court Committee to inquire about plans to move the entirety of Civil Court of the City of New York’s (“Civil Court”) dockets and case files onto the New York State Courts Electronic Filing (“NYSCEF”) system.[1]

We believe such a move would represent a significant improvement to the Civil Court’s functions and should be a priority.[2] The Civil Court has more cases on its docket than any non-family court in the entire state. In fact, many New Yorkers in their lifetimes are likely to encounter the New York’s state court system only in the Civil Courts and not in the Supreme or other courts. It is our understanding that amidst the pandemic in 2020, Housing Part of the Civil Court (“Housing Court”) began migrating its existing cases onto, along with allowing the filing of new cases on, NYSCEF. It is also our understanding that the No-Fault cases were similarly moved to NYSCEF. Unfortunately, the rest of the Civil Court docket, including Consumer Credit Transaction cases, did not make the move.

Instead, the Electronic Document Delivery System (“EDDS”) was implemented in May 2020 in response to the pandemic to allow court users to upload and send certain documents online for the purpose of filing to courts that did not permit e-filing, thereby reducing the need to file papers in the Civil Courts in-person. Although EDDS’s functionalities fall well short of the NYSCEF system, particularly since EDDS does not allow for the near-instantaneous retrieval of case files that NYSCEF permits, many practitioners and pro se litigants were glad to see the Civil Court takes a step towards full digitalization. At the time, we were told by the Office of Court Administration (“OCA”) that this was an interim step until the NYSCEF system was fully implemented in all parts of the Civil Courts.

However, four years have passed since Housing Court moved almost entirely onto NYSCEF, and large parts of Civil Court’s cases remain accessible in-person and in paper form only. Furthermore, different counties seem to have different rules about whether EDDS is still in use, or what types of documents can still be submitted for filing via EDDS. Our informal conversations with judges on this topic have not resulted in any concrete information about when a migration to NYSCEF will occur, or even assurances that it would eventually occur.

Currently, a litigant in Consumer Credit Transaction cases, which represent a large part of Civil Court’s docket, must retrieve case documents and case files in-person. Migration of Civil Court’s docket to NYSCEF would allow litigants to pull and review documents online 24/7. And importantly, it would free up Court resources since many litigants might not need a clerk’s assistance to pull a file. Additionally, the system of moving physical court files between the clerks’ office to the courtrooms occasionally results in all or part of a file being lost, either temporarily or permanently. And the backlog in EDDS filings often means judges presiding over hearings in these cases do not have the full case file before them. A fully digitalized case file could prevent such issues.

We understand that the Court often has to contend with limited resources and staff shortages. However, we believe that implementing NYSCEF to all parts of the Civil Court would not only improve court users’ experience and expand access to justice in many cases but also serve to ameliorate the shortage of staff issue.

Although we support expanding NYSCEF to all parts of the Civil Court for the aforementioned reasons, we also want to ensure that the Courts have adequate staffing to assist pro se litigants in navigating the new system. This is particularly important for litigants, such as domestic violence survivors, who need to obscure their personal and contact information from a filing system that would be much easier to access by the public. One suggestion is to roll out NYSCEF to New York City’s Civil Court one or two counties at a time, so that the expansion of NYSCEF to new case types, particularly those with high numbers of unrepresented litigants, can first be tested through pilot programs to ensure the benefits of e-filing are equally accessible to all parties in these cases.

We are eager to hear from OCA regarding what plans there are to implement NYSCEF fully in the Civil Court, and whether there is anything we can do to aid in that effort. We greatly appreciate the work that OCA does to continually improve the court system, and would welcome the opportunity to speak further with you on this matter.

Respectfully,

Charles Giudice, Co-Chair
Civil Court Committee

Tedmund Wan, Co-Chair
Civil Court Committee

CC:
Hon. Norman St. George, First Deputy Chief Administrative Judge
Tanya Faye, Acting Chief Clerk