Matters Of Luck

By: Anonymous Watcher

I sat in court for two hours, and saw 77 cases go by at rapid-fire pass. In 47 of these cases, the tenant didn’t show up, and the judge decided in favor of the landlord by default. That’s over 60% of the tenants were not raising any kind of defense for themselves. In the two cases where a tenant appeared but not a landlord, the cases were postponed. In most of the cases when tenants were present, the tenant and landlord would come to an agreement in the hallway, and the judge would weigh in and consult on terms if necessary.

Judge Chen would occasionally raise questions in the absence of tenants, but I was left wondering how many other obvious defenses were missing. In one case, she found that a landlord was trying to include a water bill and told him that while other judges might allow that kind of thing, he was unlucky enough to have her. The subtext was that here at least was a judge who plays by the book. The more disturbing insinuation is that whether or not someone gets evicted depends on what judge they are lucky or unlucky enough to be assigned to.