Judging NYC Housing Court judges.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the upcoming reforms in Housing Court. I stated that if you allow the same people who currently run the system to institute the reforms, those reforms were doomed to failure.

The reason for that inevitable failure is basic. The judges themselves are a large part of the problem.

Our current chaos in the courts is not a product of over-work, but under-work. The other morning I was in court, and at 9:45 a.m. the doors to the part I was supposed to be in were still locked. When, at a little after 10 a.m., a court officer finally opened the door, I and a flood of people streamed into the courtroom. The judge had been sitting on the bench for over a half hour and had never bothered to make sure the doors were open.

How many thousands of dollars in lost time were expended by keeping those doors locked? This particular jurist has been a Housing Court Judge for seven years. Before that he was a law secretary to a judge for many years. Do you believe he knows or even cares what his decisions cost in dollars and cents? This man never was paid by the hour, therefore, how can he know what it means to lose an hour's pay?

When I was 14, I got my flint real job. It was as a bus boy in a steak house. Any time the Maitre d' saw me walking without something in my hands he would holier at me for making unnecessary trips. "Always take dirty dishes into the kitchen and always bring something out," he would say. Work efficiently was what I learned. I have worked by that piece of advice to this day.

You need to analyze the job that has to be performed and then do it in the most efficient way. It doesn't matter if you wait on tables or wash dishes or administer the law. A judge's duty is to provide the litigants with swift and impartial justice.

Unfortunately, in too many instances, judges are more enamored of their particular philosophies and their own egos than doing the job they are being paid to do.

Now I know that if a judge reads this they will think I am crazy. I am just a greedy landlord who likes to evict tenants. That, as a non-lawyer, I don't understand the subtleties of jurisprudence or what it is like working in the chaotic conditions of the system. Their excuses would be endless.

All their excuses just reiterate my point. They arc incapable of reforming a system that they themselves have created. What makes anyone think that the overcrowding of our dockets will disappear if the reason they are overcrowded is the very way the judges administer justice? They handle their cases the way a bureaucrat handles the same piece of paper: which is to say, endlessly.

Once again, I recently experienced the phenomenon of the "never-ending case." A tenant of mine, who was ill, fell behind in her rent. She went to Social Services for one-time assistance and was told they will do the best they can. Experience has taught me the only way welfare comes up with the money is when they see a Warrant of Eviction.

On September 25th we were in court for the first time. At that time we adjourned the case for a month at the judge's insistence to give the system time. However, on the adjourned date it was marked ready for trial. On October 27th we were once again in court. Before seeing the judge, the tenant and I drew up a stipulation giving me "a final judgment of possession with a warrant forthwith which would be stayed until November 30th." The judge refused to allow the stipulation, stating it was against his policy. I then insisted on having a trial.

The trial began, but before starting the judge stated that his courtroom was packed and that he could only begin the trial and not complete it on that day. I testified and presented our prima facie case. The tenant did not ask questions or dispute the amount owed. Our judge then decided it was time, after four minutes of trial testimony, to adjourn the case until November 28th, the day after Thanksgiving.

On the 28th, the tenant will come in without the money from welfare, lose her third day of work for which she is not paid, and all for what purpose?

This little charade perpetrated by the court on both myself and the tenant is an exercise demonstrating what? The judge's lack of time management skills. Is he really unable to see the chaos he is causing to the tenant's life and the very real possibility that she may lose her job? Does he not understand the amount of money he is costing the landlord in legal fees? Is he standing up for that old socialistic rhetoric or has his ego gotten the better of him?

Would you trust this judge and others like him to reform our Housing Court?

(Thomas F. Campenni is a real estate consultant advising owners, condominiums and coops. He welcomes responses in writing at 21 West 46th Street, NY, NY 10036 or call 212-921-8043).