The Costs of Justice, 1913

1913 JP fees
(Image courtesy of the Hobart History Society.)

I came across the above typewritten list in the docket book of A.B. Wyant, who was a Hobart Township justice of the peace in the late 1930s-early 1940s. In the various stories in this blog, when I say someone had to pay a fine plus costs, the latter would include some of this stuff.

Continuing on the topic of my vast ignorance, I have to admit that before I started this research, I never thought of a justice of the peace as doing anything but marrying people who didn't want a church ceremony. So it came as a surprise to me, as I began reading the old newspapers, that when someone thought someone else has wronged him or her, a justice of the peace would get involved.

From an 1878 book entitled The Statutes of the State of Indiana I find that justices of the peace had jurisdiction over actions in contract or tort where the debt or damage claimed was less than $100 (or $200 in cases of concurrent jurisdiction; and a defendant could confess judgment up to $300). Excepted from their jurisdiction were cases involving slander, malicious prosecution, land ownership, and where any party was related to the justice of the peace by blood or marriage. Matters not falling under a J.P.'s jurisdiction would go to the county circuit court.

(I didn't find in the 1878 book, nor am I otherwise at all clear, how and to what extent J.P.s got involved in criminal matters, so I'm not going to try to deal with that now.)

The J.P.'s court was a civil court on a small scale, somewhat like our small-claims courts except that parties could be represented by attorneys if they so chose. Someone would show up in the J.P.'s office and, under oath, would tell the J.P. how he believed the other party had wronged him. If the J.P. thought the alleged facts constituted a legal case, he would issue a summons, which he would give to a constable to serve upon the other party, either by reading it to him or by leaving a copy with him. The summons would tell the other party when to show up in the J.P.'s court for the case to be heard. (If the case involved a debtor who appeared to be about to flee, the J.P. could order his arrest.) The J.P. also had the power to subpoena witnesses.

The J.P. himself would try the case, unless either party requested a jury trial, in which case the J.P. would preside over the jury trial.

In the same docket book, I found what was probably a typical summons:
1940 Summons
(Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.)

And that's our legal lecture for today. Hope you enjoyed this edition of "The Blogger's Court."


Source: Davis, Edwin A., LL.B. (ed.). The Statutes of the State of Indiana. Indianapolis: Bingham & Co.; Merrill, Hubbard & Co., 1878.