Ballot Proposal 5: Increasing the Monetary Limit on Lawsuits That Can Be Decided by the New York City Civil Court
October 27, 2021
By Patrick A. Woods, Deputy Director, Government Law Center
The Government Law Center provides nonpartisan explainers of proposed amendments to the New York State Constitution in order to help voters understand the choices they are being asked to make. We neither endorse nor oppose the particular proposed amendments that our explainers discuss. Our role is to explain, not to advocate for a position.
The Government Law Center’s explainers concisely map out the law that applies to important questions of public policy.
Ballot Proposal 5 on the 2021 ballot asks whether to change one word of the New York State Constitution: it will replace the word “twenty-five” with the word “fifty” in Article VI, Section 15(b).1That revision would raise the constitutional limit on the monetary amount at issue in civil cases that the New York City Civil Court can adjudicate from $25,000 to $50,000. The change will require additional action by the Legislature to be effective and has no significant effect on voters residing outside of New York City.
What Is the New York City Civil Court?
The New York City Civil Court is a trial-level court in New York City that has the power (referred to as “jurisdiction” in the State Constitution and laws) to decide a variety of disputes between individuals and businesses, many of which involve the recovery of money or property other than real estate of relatively low values or amounts. As the name suggests, New York City Civil Court’s jurisdiction is limited to only civil cases, not criminal cases. Each borough of New York City has its own division of the Civil Court. Each division is further subdivided into parts handling specific kinds of cases—such as housing and small claims—and stages of cases—such as trials and motions.
The New York City Civil Court is limited by the New York State Constitution to deciding cases where the amount at issue is up to $25,000.2 Cases involving more than $25,000 must currently be filed in New York State Supreme Court—the trial-level court existing throughout the state that can hear nearly all types of cases, both civil and criminal. Cases brought in the New York City Civil Court which are outside of its jurisdiction are not dismissed, but are transferred to another court which has the authority to resolve them, such as Supreme Court.3
The $25,000 monetary limitation on what cases can be brought in the New York City Civil Court is not unusual in New York State. The county courts operating outside of New York City are subject to the same $25,000 limitation on civil cases.4 The New York State district courts5, city courts, town courts, and village courts are subject to a $15,000 constitutional cap.6
What Does the Proposed Amendment Do in Practice?
The proposed amendment raises the constitutional monetary limit on the amount at issue in cases that New York City Civil Court can hear from $25,000 to $50,000.
The primary effect of raising the cap on cases that Civil Court can hear will be to allow plaintiffs to bring more cases in Civil Court, rather than in Supreme Court, for each of the five counties comprising New York City. The high caseloads in Supreme Court and attendant delays in resolving cases are perennial challenges to judicial administration. The legislators who introduced the proposed constitutional amendment in the State Senate and Assembly in 2019 and 20217 each identified reducing the caseload of Supreme Court as a significant benefit to be achieved by the amendment.
Another effect of the proposed amendment will be to make it less expensive to bring civil claims where the amount at issue is between $25,000 and $50,000 in New York City courts. The costs associated with bringing a case in New York City Civil Court are lower than those associated with bringing a case in Supreme Court.8
Finally, as also noted by proponents of the amendment in the Legislature, raising the cap will serve as a measure to adjust for inflation, allowing citizens access to the lower costs associated with Civil Court in more cases. Adjusting the monetary cap on Civil Court jurisdiction will bring the range of cases that can be brought in that court back into line with the range of cases that it was intended to handle when the current $25,000 ceiling was set in 1983.
How Controversial Is this Change?
If “controversy” is measured by political opposition in the Legislature, Ballot Proposal 5 is decidedly uncontroversial. The amendment passed both the Senate and Assembly in 2019 and in 2021 without a single “nay” vote. The legislative history does not reveal that any substantive arguments were advanced against raising the Civil Court’s monetary cap.
However, if the measure of controversy is the degree of support by the public, the proposed amendment may be more controversial. A similar upward adjustment that would have raised the monetary cap on the jurisdiction of the Civil Court and District Courts was put to the voters in 1995. Support for that proposal was similarly widespread in the Legislature, garnering only three “nay” votes in 1993 and four “nay” votes in 1995. Nevertheless, the 1995 amendment narrowly failed to obtain a majority of votes of the electorate.9
On the other hand, in 1983, the voters approved, by a large margin, an amendment that raised the monetary cap on Civil Court actions from $10,000 to $25,000.10 Unlike Ballot Proposition 5, however, the 1983 amendment also raised the monetary caps on the jurisdiction of the County Courts and District Courts.
If It Passes, Is this Change Effective Immediately?
If it passes, the amendment would become effective January 1, 2022. However, additional action by the Legislature and the Governor will be necessary to actually raise the monetary cap on New York City Civil Court jurisdiction. This is because Article VI, Section 15(b) of the State Constitution also allows the Legislature to set a cap lower than the constitutional cap. That section provides that the cap is either $25,000 ($50,000 if the amendment passes) “or such smaller amount as may be fixed by law.” Furthermore, numerous provisions of the New York City Civil Court Act refer to the current cap of $25,000.11 It will also be necessary to amend those provisions to $50,000 before the New York City Civil Court can hear cases involving more than $25,000.12
Conclusion
Proposition number 5 will increase the constitutional limit on the monetary amount at issue in cases that the New York City Civil Court can hear from $25,000 to $50,000. This change will allow some cases that currently must be brought in Supreme Court to be brought in New York City Civil Court at a more affordable cost. The amendment will have no discernable effect on those residing outside of New York City.
Endnotes
1 - New York State Constitution, Article VI, Section 15(b) currently provides that the New York City Civil Court “shall have jurisdiction” over:
actions and proceedings for the recovery of money, actions and proceedings for the recovery of chattels and actions and proceedings for the foreclosure of mechanics liens and liens on personal property where the amount sought to be recovered or the value of the property does not exceed twenty-five thousand dollars exclusive of interest and costs, or such smaller amount as may be fixed by law; over summary proceedings to recover possession of real property and to remove tenants there from and over such other actions and proceedings, not within the exclusive jurisdiction of the supreme court, as may be provided by law. The court of city-wide civil jurisdiction shall further exercise such equity jurisdiction as may be provided by law and its jurisdiction to enter judgment upon a counterclaim for the recovery of money only shall be unlimited.
2 - There are some limited exceptions to the monetary cap. For example, the cap does not apply to actions that are transferred to New York City Civil Court from Supreme Court and to counterclaims seeking only money. Those exceptions would be unaffected by the proposed amendment.
3 - New York State Constitution, Article VI, Section 19(f).
4 - New York State Constitution, Article VI, Section 11(a).
5 - Not to be confused with federal district courts, New York State district courts are trial-level courts that exist only in Nassau and Suffolk counties.
6 - New York State Constitution, Article VI, Sections 16(d) and 17(a).
7 - Legislatively referred constitutional amendments, including this one, must pass both the Senate and Assembly twice, in successive sessions, before being put to a statewide vote. New York State Constitution, Article XIX, Section 1.
8 - See Filing Fees, NYCOURTS.GOV, https://www.nycourts.gov/forms/filingfees.shtml.
9 - The proposal failed by a vote of 835,143 (49.67%) to 846,112 (50.33%).
10 - The 1983 amendment passed by a vote of 1,314,754 (54.81%) to 1,084,200 (45.19%).
11 - New York City Civil Court Act §§ 201; 202; 203(b), (c), (e)-(j); 205; 208(c)(1)-(2); 211; 212-a(a), (b); 213.
12 - If the amendment passes, the Legislature and the Governor should strongly consider either passing and signing the conforming amendments to the New York City Civil Court Act by January 1, 2022, or including express language in a bill eventually doing so that says that the conforming amendments are intended to be retroactive to January 1, 2022. See Scheinfeld v. Allstate Ins. Co., 123 Misc.3d 593 (N.Y. Civ. Ct. 1984) (addressing the temporal gap between the effective date of the 1983 amendment and the passage of conforming amendments to the New York City Civil Court Act).