The Recession Begins Flooding Into the Courts

[Purveyor]

By WILLIAM GLABERSON
Published: December 27, 2009

New York State’s courts are closing the year with 4.7 million cases — the highest tally ever — and new statistics suggest that courtrooms are now seeing the delayed result of the country’s economic collapse. The Great Recession may be showing signs of easing, but the legal fallout from the financial troubles, the numbers suggest, may have only just begun.

And the increase in New York offers a preview of the recession-related cases showing up in courts across the nation.

New York’s judges are wading into these types of cases by the tens of thousands, according to the new statistics, cases involving not only bad debts and soured deals, but also filings that are indirect but still jarring measures of economic stresses, like charges of violence in families torn apart by lost jobs and homes in jeopardy.

Contract disputes statewide in 2009 are projected to be up 9 percent from the year before. Statewide home foreclosure filings increased 17 percent, to 48,127 filings. Cases involving charges like assault by family members were up 18 percent statewide. While serious crime remains low, misdemeanor charges in New York City were up 7 percent and lesser violations were up 18 percent in 2009.

Judges and lawyers say the tales behind any number of cases, including low-level offenses like turnstile jumping and petty theft, are often a barometer of bad times. And they said that the data showed that courts nationally would be working through the recession’s consequences for years, much as they did with the flood of cases stemming from the crack cocaine epidemic of the 1980s, even after the epidemic had slowed.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/28/nyregion/28caseload.html?_r=1

[Mari333]

1. knr

Its getting ugly.
we have had 2 murders in our small town of 5000 in just ONE MONTH. and a beating that left a man in a coma.

crime is up 5.5% in towns with less than 10,000 people/

the court dockets are full everywhere and overloaded.

this is what happens when corporations and warmongers run a country.

[Goldstein1984]

2. The jobless recovery

I worry that consumer confidence is being artificially inflated by an indicator--the stock market--that reflects corporate recovery rather than a recovery on Main Street. The recent rise in the value of insurance company stocks is a function of the likelihood that HCR is going to create a large mandated set of customers while lacking any price controls. Many corporations have recovered by restructuring and permanently eliminating jobs. Much of the recovery we are seeing is based on government stimulus, and we and our grandchildren will be paying for that.

I'm not trying to be pessimistic, only realistic. The cup holds what the cup holds, regardless of how one looks at it.

We serve ourselves better if we "hope for the best and plan for the worst."

[lastliberalintexas]

4. I don't think consumer confidence is high at all

I don't care what the media tell us or what the Dow is doing. People know they don't have any money in the bank and either their own family is suffering through un/underemployment or know someone who is.

[Quantess]

3. K & R