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A purge of stale civil court filings that hadn’t been performed in Luzerne County in more than a decade cleared 2,026 backlogged cases from judges’ dockets Tuesday in a collaborative effort by two branches of county government.
Cases filed between 2011 and 2014 that had a two-year period of inactivity were terminated through the purge. The last time such a purge was completed was in 2005, when the county switched from entering dockets manually to a computerized system, said Jim Haddock, prothonotary and clerk of courts manager.
Court administration pushed for the cases’ removal to help form a clearer picture of the workload before civil judges, a number inflated by cases that were often stagnant because they were settled outside of court without their knowledge, Haddock said.
The move benefits the judicial and executive branches of county government as well as the taxpayers, he said.
“This is good news for Luzerne County,” Haddock said, noting the endeavor was “a big undertaking.”
Court administration reviewed 4,000 cases to identify which were eligible, county court Administrator Michael Shucosky said.
Termination letters were then sent to the parties in each case slated for removal, Haddock said. The letter notified the parties of a hearing held Tuesday before Luzerne County Judge Lesa S. Gelb. There, they could argue to the court why the cases should be left open, he said.
Haddock said 351 statements of intent to proceed were filed.
The parties’ reasons for leaving their cases dormant varied, Gelb said.
“Some of them have really good reasons, like some matters that are being pursued behind the scenes,” she said. Other explanations didn’t quite fly.
“Someone said today there’s been three objections on the case,” the judge said. “So there’s other reasons.”
The purge is supposed to be done yearly, Haddock said, but the practice came to a halt more than a decade ago. Officials say the last purge in 2005 took place during the administration of former county prothonotary Jill Moran, who served from 2003 until her resignation in 2009.
It was unclear exactly why it stopped.
“We don’t know the exact reasons for the ills of the past,” Haddock said.
Gelb was an attorney the last time the purge was completed and said she was determined to see it happen again. Now in her fifth year on the bench, she said removing stale cases gives judges a more accurate portrayal of their caseload and makes the the county court system look better because it has fewer aging cases.
“The court can only gauge its performance by how many cases are on the docket, so it’s good to have an accurate idea of what our backlog is,” she said.
Court administration gets about about 7,000 new civil filings every year, but 93 percent never make it to a judge, Shucosky said.
“Parties settle, they make arrangements, cases are withdrawn,” he said. “People aren’t able to be served. Attorneys cost money. People go bankrupt. (There are) all sorts of reasons.”
County government branches combined their resources to address the backlog, Shucosky said. He said by sharing the work, officials were able to get it done.
Next year, officials say they will work backward and purge cases prior to 2011. They say they expect the next slate of cases to be a much smaller number.
“It’ll get a lot easier as we move forward,” Haddock said.