Restoration of errant husbands, settlement of debts, mediation in family or neighbors’ quarrels, landlord-tenant troubles — in a word, the entire gamut of human tragedy as well as comedy — is grist for the mill that is the Good Will Court. Cases that would confound King Solomon are not infrequent on the calendar of this unique institution.
Consider the complaint of a firm which sells on instalment and seeks to collect from a man and wife. The defendants’ rejoinder runs somewhat as follows: They had implicit faith in their President Hoover who urged a radio in every home, a car in every garage, who said that no home should be without a baby and that the baby should have a dog to play with.
So Mr. and Mrs. Citizen bought, on the monthly payment plan, a car for their garage and a radio for their living room. They had no child of their own but adopted a youngster and purchased for him an imposing shepherd dog. Today they cannot meet the payments and the gigantic canine is consuming more food than the whole family.
SERVICES FREE
It’s situations like this one that make life interesting for the Good Will Court’s judges, a group of three representative citizens, changed from week to week, and consisting of a Catholic, a Jew and a Protestant. All its services free, the court is the idea of Municipal Court Justice Nathan Sweedler who was struck with the thought of how much of taxpayers’ money could be saved if a large number of cases could be settled amicably out of court. Not only money, but time and energy are conserved by this informal tribunal that changes hatred into love, antipathy and distrust into understanding sympathy.
Any person may, and a great many do, come with any grievance which, it is felt, may be satisfactorily settled without resort to litigation. Irrespective of race, nationality or creed, an effort is made to bring the contending parties together. The court meets every Monday night in the Brooklyn Eagle Building on Johnson street.
NO COURT FORMALITY
Everything there is informal. No one is sworn in. Technical rules of evidence are not observed. Any method agreeable to both parties is used to reach an agreement, the process is consummated in a few minutes of friendly discussion in contrast to long drawn out court trials that engender bitter feeling.
Among the Jewish complainants recently there came an old blind man, whose daughter died in childbirth. Her husband refused to put up a tombstone on her grave which greatly grieved the sightless father. “Even one for $25 would make me happy,” he pleaded in Yiddish. The Good Will Court interceded and the son-in-law agreed to comply.
FATHER AND CHILDREN
Another old man, from Brighton Beach, whose business went to pieces in the depression, told the judges that his six grown-up children, all well-to-do, refused to support him. The children have been invited to the next session, and there is every prospect of satisfying the impoverished father.
“My son took $1,600 from me, promised to pay back at the rate of $25 a month. He made two $20 payments and one of $15. That was three months ago, and that was all. His business in Hudson, N. Y., is prospering,” a mother testified.
One of the judges casually inquired when did the son borrow that amount. The answer was, “thirteen years ago.” Nevertheless, a course of action calculated to assist the aged mother was mapped out.
Some people who appear before the Good Will Court are referred to their rabbis, priests, ministers. Lawyers and doctors familiar with the institution’s record of effectively handling hundreds of cases, often volunteer their services gratis.
If ever there was “a poor man’s court” it is this creation of Judge Sweedler’s where those who appear are not likely to be made inarticulate by the disappointingly impersonal procedure and rigidity of a more conventional court. In more than twenty years of law practice, Judge Sweedler had ample opportunity to observe the disheartening court system with its iron-clad rules of evidence and other obstacles to pursuit of justice in a truly humanitarian manner.
His conception of the situation calls for sympathy and understanding. He is always willing to take a chance on human nature, and time and again his theories have been vindicated in the workings of the Good Will Court.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
