Nader to Sponsor Harvard Group Investigating Small Claims Courts

Ralph Nader's Center for Auto Safety has agreed to sponsor a group of students and lawyers from Harvard and the Boston area who will conduct a study this summer of Small Claims Courts across the nation.

John H. Weiss, a research associate at the Harvard Program on Technology and Society, founded the group, called the Small Claims Study Group. It is now recruiting student volunteers willing to spend a short time this summer surveying the Small Claims Courts in their home cities.

Small Claims Courts allow individual citizens to settle disputes involving small amounts of money without employing lawyers. According to Weiss, the purpose of this summer's study is to determine what kind of cases are handled by the different Small Claims Courts and what can be done to make them and the law more responsive to people who can't afford a lawyer.

At the end of the summer the group will submit to Nader a report containing information on procedures in various cities and on test cases, and a model code for Small Claims Courts.

"Sometimes the Courts' cases involve someone owing someone else $10," Weiss said yesterday, "but sometimes they are test cases with broad implications." Last March Weiss led a group of seven tenants into the Boston Small Claims Court against Joseph Hunter, a Boston landlord. Hunter was eventually forced to remit more than $1650 in unreturned security deposits.

In terms of test cases the study this summer will focus on the areas of tenants' rights, automobile service and product complaints, and consumer protection in education.

Nader's Center for Auto Safety has been concerned with the protection of consumers of automotive products and recently published What To Do About Your Bad Car: A Manual for Lemon-Owners.

Anyone interested in helping with the project in any part of the country this summer should call 491-8006, 498-3134, or 547-8402, or write to the Small Claims Study Group in Room 1, Quincy House.