New York County - Civil Branch
Commencement of Cases
COMMENCEMENT OF CASES
Concerning: Initial Filings / Filing Procedures and Fees / RJI / Related Cases / Assignment of Cases / Commercial Division Assignments / Commencing Cases Under Seal or with Anonymous Caption
A. STARTING A CASE
To commence an action or special proceeding, a summons and complaint or summons with notice in an action, or a petition in a special proceeding shall be filed with the County Clerk in Room 141B, 60 Centre Street. CPLR 304. The filing party obtains an index number by (i) completing an index number purchase sheet and a cover sheet (see Forms on this site); and (ii) paying to the County Clerk's cashier a fee of $ 210 (absent a poor person order). All fees must be paid by cash, certified check (payable to the County Clerk), credit card (Visa or Mastercard), or U.S. postal money order. The checks of attorneys within New York State bearing "Attorney at Law" or "Esquire" and the attorney’s address and phone number will be accepted. Checks from outside New York must be certified. The County Clerk will issue a receipt, which the applicant will need to show when proceeding to court.
To make a filing that commences a case, the attorney must deliver the summons and complaint, summons with notice or petition to the County Clerk in Room 141B together with the index number fee. At the time of filing, the original and a copy of these papers will be date stamped by the Clerk, who shall file the original and maintain a record of the date of filing and who shall immediately return the copy to the filing party. CPLR 304.
When the matter commenced is a special proceeding or a motion/action pursuant to CPLR 3213, the filing attorney should file the original papers with the County Clerk and a duplicate original with the Motion Support Office (Room 119). D. Siegel, New York Practice 96 (4th ed. 2005).
In electronically filed cases (in New York County, tort, tax certiorari and commercial cases can be so filed), documents can be filed on-line and the filing fee can be paid for by credit card on-line.
A Request for Judicial Intervention ("RJI") is purchased in the County Clerk's cashier's office, Room 160 (cost $ 95). The filer of an RJI may seek an assignment only (e.g., so that a Justice might be available for rulings if difficulties were to arise during an impending deposition) or judicial action, principally with regard to a request for a preliminary conference; a motion on notice or petition and notice of petition; an order to show cause; or a note of issue (cost $ 30, $ 125 with RJI). Rule 202.6 of the Uniform Rules for the Trial Courts.
The filer of an RJI must check off a box identifying the case type, which brings about a random assignment of the case by computer to a Justice handling cases of that type. The same boxes should be checked on the RJI as on the County Clerk's cover sheet. Random assignment of course ensures fairness. The filer must also designate a Differentiated Case Management ("DCM") track ("expedite", "standard" or "complex") (Rule 202.19 of the Uniform Rules for the Trial Courts) and provide information on service in matrimonial cases.
B. RELATED CASES
In an effort to conserve judicial resources and avoid inconsistent rulings, the filing counsel must check off whether a related case exists. If the new case is designated as related, it will automatically be assigned to the Justice who was assigned the earlier case provided that the latter has not already been disposed of. If the earlier case has been disposed of, the Clerk will assign the case at random; the filing attorney is, however, free to argue to the Justice to whom the case is assigned that the matter ought to be assigned to the Justice who had handled the earlier case due to considerations of judicial efficiency and the like. If a party believes that such a related-case designation and resulting assignment were made in error, or that the filing party incorrectly failed to designate the case as related, the issue should be raised before the assigned Justice, who may send the matter to the back office for a random reassignment or a transfer if the complaint is justified. If further review is required, it occurs before the Administrative Judge. The policy of the court is that one Justice may not order the transfer of a case directly to another particular Justice except (i) pursuant to procedures governing related cases or (ii) in the case of motions to reargue or renew (CPLR 2221) or (iii) with the permission of the Administrative Judge.
C. ASSIGNMENT OF CASES
When an RJI is presented in a back office, the case is "initialized" by data entry personnel, that is, the caption, index number and attorney appearance(s) are recorded in the Civil Case Information System computer, the court's computer system. An assignment is made, and the intervention requested is set in motion.
It may happen that an RJI has been filed but has not yet been processed and another party to the case may wish to bring on an order to show cause immediately. In most instances the County Clerk's computer will show whether an RJI has been purchased. So will the Supreme Court Records On-Line Library ("Scroll"), the case data and document repository available on this website. The office that receives the proposed order to show cause will try to locate the pending RJI in the other back office and cause it immediately to be processed by that other office so that the case can be assigned to a Justice to whom the order to show cause may be referred; or the receiving office will seek from the party presenting the order to show cause a copy of the RJI, which should have been served upon that party. This will permit the back office handling the proposed order to show cause to ascertain that an RJI has indeed been filed (though not yet processed) and to assign the case in accordance with the designations on the RJI. The party who first filed the RJI has the right to have the case processed in accordance with the designation made on the RJI by that party. If, in the view of another party, the RJI has not properly been completed, that party may raise this issue with the assigned Justice. Clerks cannot alter the RJI as filed nor can they direct another attorney to do so.D. COMMERCIAL DIVISION ASSIGNMENTS
Pursuant to procedures that became effective on January 17, 2006, a party filing an RJI who wishes to have the case assigned to the Commercial Division must designate the case as a "Commercial" one on the RJI and must submit together with the RJI a statement in support of the assignment to the Division and a copy of the pleadings. Section 202.70 (d) of the Uniform Rules for the Trial Courts.E. ANONYMOUS CAPTIONS/FILING UNDER SEAL
A party may sometimes wish to obtain an order permitting a case to proceed under an anonymous caption, or to file initiating papers under seal pending a ruling by a Justice. For information, click here.
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