New fees aid court, hike cost of justice

Plaintiffs who can't afford the new charge could have their cases dismissed.

"It's bizarre and unfair," said Joanne D'Alcomo, a lawyer at Jager Smith PC.

The new fee, many lawyers said, effectively penalizes plaintiffs who, often through no fault of their own, find themselves waiting years for the final resolution of cases in which they have already reached settlements or been awarded damages.

District courts began sending out bills last week, and clerks from superior courts and the Boston Municipal Court said they would do so beginning this week. Daniel B. Shapiro of Shapiro & Associates received his first anniversary fee bill in the mail last week, and he complained that it amounted to a tax on plaintiffs. "If you want to raise a few more bucks for the court system, fine, but do it in a way that's fair, equitable, and constitutional," he said.

Some lawyers have vowed to fight for repeal of the anniversary fee, even as court clerks across the state began issuing tens of thousands of invoices. This month, the superior courts alone will send out more than 20,000 invoices for anniversary fees.

But the official who originally suggested the new levy -- Governor Mitt Romney's chief counsel, Daniel B. Winslow -- said opponents of the fee should focus on the message behind it: "Justice delayed is justice denied."

"Massachusetts has one of the slowest and most expensive civil justice systems in the country," Winslow said. "There are management challenges and cultural attitudes that need to be changed."

The state courts have been locked for years in a battle with legislative leaders over control of the court budget and hiring procedures. Since Romney took office in January, he has attacked patronage and inefficiency in the state court system, losing a bid to merge the Boston Municipal Court into the district court system.

The law establishing anniversary fees took effect Oct. 1, and it requires civil plaintiffs in superior court to pay $120 every year their case remains on the docket after it was filed. In district court and the Boston Municipal Court, the annual fee is $90.

The statute makes no exceptions for indigent plaintiffs, who are excused from paying filing fees, or for plaintiffs in cases such as medical malpractice and product liability that routinely take at least three years to reach trial.

Court clerks say they can barely keep up with paperwork from the thousands of cases already wending their way through the system. About 25,000 new civil cases are filed every year in superior court. Last year, the state court system sustained an $18 million budget cut, but this year the Legislature raised its budget by more than $3 million, although for the first time about 10 percent of the court system's budget is contingent on collecting court fees for things such as probation services.

Between fiscal year 2002 and fiscal year 2004, the state's trial courts lost more than 1,000 employees through layoffs, attrition, and early retirement.

"It's certainly added an additional burden to what we think is an already overtaxed staff," said Michael Donovan, head civil clerk at Suffolk Superior Court and president of the Superior Court Clerks Association.

In preparing to assess the new fees, Donovan said his staff pored over about 5,600 cases that are more than one year old.

Court officials met last week to create uniform procedures for charging anniversary fees. They had wanted to exempt some plaintiffs from the fee, such as people renewing restraining orders in domestic abuse cases, but after examining the statute made exceptions to the fee only for the cases in which the plaintiff is the Commonwealth of Massachusetts or has filed for bankruptcy.

In superior courts statewide, more than half of the 37,700 civil cases are at least a year old. Court officials don't have statistics on the age of cases in the district court system and Boston Municipal Court, where in fiscal year 2002 a total of 81,437 civil cases were filed.

"Do we really want our court clerks spending their time like employees of credit card companies, assessing interest, collecting late fees, keeping track of payments?" D'Alcomo asked. Members of the Massachusetts Bar Association have criticized the fee, and plan a vote on whether to lobby for its repeal. Thanassis Cambanis can be reached at tcambanis@globe.com.