That’s a bewildering search string I’ve seen over the past few days.<\/p>\n
Why bewildering? Because the person looking for an answer seems to think there’s a flat price for a lawsuit. There isn’t.<\/p>\n
If the question is how much does it cost to file<\/em> a lawsuit, there is<\/em> an answer. And, quite serendipitously, if you’re considering filing a federal lawsuit you will get that answer from a federal judge.<\/p>\n Yesterday, the Times published an article by Joseph Goldstein called, “A Court Rule Directs Cases Over Friskings To One Judge.”<\/a> I had pretty much intended to link to this article \u2014 it’s a major lawsuit with great repercussions for the City and police department, as well as for the plaintiffs. So I read the entire piece and here’s what I found in the last four paragraphs (I bolded one specific statement]:<\/p>\n In court, Judge [Shira] Scheindlin suggested a route other than trying to reopen the old case.<\/em><\/p>\n “If you got proof of inappropriate racial profiling in a good constitutional case, why don’t you bring a lawsuit?” she asked. “You can certainly mark it as related.”<\/em><\/p>\n At another point she said, “For $350, you can bring that lawsuit,” a reference to the filing fee. <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n About a month later, the lawyers filed Floyd v. City of New York, now at trial in her courtroom.<\/em><\/p>\n If you want to sue in New York Supreme Court, the filing fee is … well, why don’t you find it yourself? A little bit of homework: under my Sites of Interest, click on NYS Unified Court Systems, then Supreme & Civil, then Supreme Civil Branch. Run the cursor on the left side over Court Resources, then click on Fees.<\/p>\n You’ll see that it costs $210 in New York Supreme Courts to file a lawsuit, i.e., buy an index number.<\/p>\n Those are the fees in federal and state court to “sue someone.”<\/p>\n Unless you’ve got a contingency case, though, pursuing the lawsuit with an attorney is somewhat more expensive. My lawsuit against the Board of Directors of my co-op, filed in September 2007 for that filing fee of $210, has as of this month cost me almost $190,000.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" That’s a bewildering search string I’ve seen over the past few days. Why bewildering? Because the person looking for an answer seems to think there’s a flat price for a lawsuit. There isn’t. If the question is how much does … Continue reading