 Good morning, everyone. I'm Representative Tom Burdett and I'll be chairing the meeting this morning. Coach, Representative Christie will be vice chair today and Representative Ghostlant will be our ranking member today. We're going to be discussing H112, an act relating to raising the jurisdictional limit for small claims. And we're going to start even though we're not going to go in order to start as far as our witness list goes. We're going to start with Daniel Richards, the attorney for access to justice coalition. And attorney Richards, the floor is yours. Thank you. Thank you. It's actually Richardson. Oh, okay. Just a small note. I don't want to lose those two letters. No, no. Let's keep on on. Exactly. Thank you very much. And thank you very much for accommodating my schedule. My name is Dan Richardson. I'm an attorney in private practice in Montpelier, Vermont at Tarrant Gillis Richardson and Shems. And as part of my volunteer service, I am on the access to justice coalition board, which is a coalition of a variety of legal service providers, particularly to low income Vermonters. And that includes representatives from the Vermont Supreme Court, legal aid, legal services of Vermont, the Vermont bar association and the Vermont bar foundation as well as the Vermont law school. So the access to justice coalition does not have an official position on this bill. We have not been able to meet to take any particular position. So I'll speak today really out of my own experience and from an access to justice perspective, but it is strictly my own. In addition to my work on the access justice committee, I've served as an acting small claims court judge for 10 years. So I do bring that experience to bear. So the issue of small claims court jurisdiction is an access to justice issue, but not necessarily as you would expect. And I think there's really two sides to this coin. So on the first side and I should say both the Vermont bar association and legal aid have representatives who are part of the coalition who will be testifying today and will demonstrate I think both sides of this coin. On one side, small claims court is intended as a, and actually functions as an effective and simple form for individuals to bring claims and to seek monetary damages. As an acting small claims court judge, I've really witnessed those types of encounters where people have come forward, felt that they've had their day in court, their voices have been heard, that they've either received judgments or in some cases they've been ruled against them, but they felt that they had an opportunity to present their case, to make their best argument. And so allowing more claims into this process is a good idea. And it is true that there is a large gap between the $5,000 limit, the ceiling right now on small claims court and what's economically practicable to bring into superior court because the expenses to bring a full claim into superior court rise substantially. And to the extent that you would raise it to $10,000, you'd start to close that gap. And that it wouldn't just simply be for litigants who had a $5,000 to $10,000 claim, it would really fall, somebody had a $25,000 claim or $15,000 claim, they could bring a small claims court action and simply wave anything above the $10,000 limit. And we already see this in small claims court where somebody who has maybe a $7,000 claim will bring a small claims court action and say, I understand I'm not gonna get more than 5,000, but 5,000 is better than zero and 7,000 doesn't justify me going into superior court. So I mean, it does allow a range of cases involving individuals that would be allowed to come into court that are not seeking court right now because it's just not practicable. 5,000 may not be worth their time to go into court if their claim is $25,000. And so raising this does allow that sort of category. But at the same time, there's another side to this coin and I think it's an important one to consider. And I know that, and Patricia Gabel from the court administrator's office may be here to speak about some of those issues. And so I won't dive deeply into that because I know that the court itself has attempted to talk about some of, or address some of these issues as far as credit card collection cases and whether small claims court is the right form for those cases to be brought. But as it stands right now, small credit card cases and third party debt collection cases are able to be brought into small claims court. And these numerically make up a wide majority of the cases that we see in small claims court. I mean, by and large. And these cases are very different than the idea of small claims court as sort of a form for individuals to sort out claims against each other. They look very different than those type of cases. In debt collection cases or consumer credit card cases, plaintiffs have counsel each and every time. Defendants almost never do. This type of litigation is a high volume litigation. So the attorneys that are bringing the claims are filing thousands of them a year in the court system. There's a small group of debt collection attorneys that do this type of work and they go all around the state and they file hundreds in each county. These cases are often paper cases where what the plaintiff has are records. Sometimes they're generated because they're the credit card company. Sometimes they're bought and they're bought in high volume. And so while small claims court rules do have those type of requirements that the plaintiffs make out the prima facie case, the basic case, it's often really difficult to sort through because the plaintiff has a bunch of paper records. They don't necessarily have a live witness. And the debtor, if that debtor shows up, usually is not equipped to either make objections on an evidentiary basis for these business records or is not equipped to handle the type of meritorious objections that they might make to the merits and substance of the case. They struggle with it and you can see them struggling with it. These cases often feel like assembly lines and the process for trying them on the merits are I think fair to say problematic. We do in small claims court the best job possible but I don't think anybody walks away thinking the same type of justice is served as when individuals come and they're able to fully vet their cases. It's really a different beast. Credit card contracts and small, I apologize. The other thing is that credit card cases often allow for fee shifting. So there is a certain risk to a defendant. Now this cuts both ways. If the fee shifting occurs in superior court that can create a greater expense to them as opposed to going to small claims court where the fees are lower. But at the same time it does create an issue where there is risk and usually it's to the debtor to challenge these cases or to push against the process. So why does this important for a bill that deals with a threshold? It's just simply the fact that if you raise the threshold to $10,000 you're going to get more of these credit card cases. And just as there are cases out there from individuals who are not filing cases because of the jurisdictional threshold and the difference between that and going to superior court the same are true for these debt collection cases. And so I think it's a valid concern and it's an access to justice concern that raising the jurisdictional limit would potentially bring those cases in. Now I know and I've talked with Terry Corsons at the VBA and I know that other states deal with this by creating two different types of jurisdictional limits. One for individuals and one for credit card companies or to these class of claims. And that's certainly a direction that I think this legislature could go in to create that. And I think that certainly goes at the problem itself. But I think that's really the big issue and concern that I would have or that anyone in the access to justice community would likely have is to not do harm or give an advantage to these type of claims that are in and of themselves problematic. And I would say that I think there's a larger issue well beyond this bill about how these type of cases are handled. And we've seen in just for example the post-judgment realm there's a real struggle with that. And in some cases, Small Claims Court is really well suited for the post-judgment portion of it because it has a financial disclosure component that Superior Court doesn't have that really is very effective in helping sort out people with disability or other economic reasons not to be collected against. The Small Claims Court does that well but it also doesn't, we've run into trouble and we've seen in certain counties where people have been arrested for debt and that's not a good thing and that's led to other trouble and certainly in Small Claims Court that issue was there until the court really removed that problem but it's indicative of these type of cases is that there's a certain point at which the court can't provide any further relief or action for a judgment creditor. So that's in the heart the essence of my testimony. I'm happy to take any questions that anyone might have. You know, it's really sort of a non-position but I think these are the two important considerations that this committee should consider and I think it's a very good idea that you're having this discussion and I really appreciate the opportunity to talk with you. Great, thank you very much and I see Representative Rachelson has her hand up. Good morning, Judge. Thank you for coming this morning. This is quite interesting and I have heard from so many people that they didn't feel like Small Claims Court would be able to be a good vehicle for them because of the amount. So I have a couple of questions. One is, I like the idea of different amounts for individuals versus credit card companies. I'm wondering if it would be worth pursuing having a credit court that would just be separate period that maybe there could be training for litigants who don't have counsel. I know that some of the judges have been doing that and just remove that from Small Claims Court and really just carve it out. Well, that's a great question and I know that the Civil Rules Committee actually was seeking to do, they in August they announced a proposed rule that would actually have removed credit card cases from Small Claims Court entirely and put them within Superior Court. The court and the judiciary has had some resistance to the idea of creating specialized courts. I mean, I think they're more flexible on the idea of dockets. I would be happy to talk and I can talk at great length about why credit card cases are different for that exact reason. And there are reasons why, often the most important part of a credit card case, collection cases, the ability to pay. Skip the merits for a moment. If this person's on disability or this person has no income, the case is over. It should be just kicked out and never touched because this person is uncollectable against and it's a waste of both the creditors time as well as the court's time to entertain it. And too often I see that in Small Claims Court where I'm in a post-judgment hearing and I call it the little ablated with a walker who comes in for the first time on a motion for contempt because she hasn't appeared any other time. And she said, I just got out of bed. I've been sick. I'm on permanent disability and I'm 85. And it's the case is over. No one's, you know, the creditor goes back and it was really a waste of time, all the prior filings in some respects. So are you at all worried about the vault? Like, so let's say we do have some kind of cap on the credit card ones. Are you worried about the volume of cases in general? Like, do we have enough wherewithal to be able to handle the increase? Well, I think we do. I mean, at least I can speak. I've only served in Washington County and I know that they've done a really good job of keeping those, but certainly credit card cases, there's a lot and it's a, like I said, it feels like an assembly line when these cases come up. Individually, I don't think there's a problem. I think raising the $10,000 floor or ceiling would easily be the court could easily account for those. Not withstanding any sort of COVID related issues that might cause docket delays or backups. But I think the credit card cases that would be significant. And I've got a couple more quick questions. One is, do you recommend the fee going up because the amount is going up? I mean, I'm not sure I do, but I'm just wondering if you discuss that. I haven't, I think that's one of those issues that I would certainly defer to the court because the fees often have less to do with the judgment and more about keeping them low keeps people able to access this court. But it's certainly a consideration as to if there's a greater volume, whether there's a greater need for revenue. The other piece that I'd ask is it seems like it would be important to embed a public education component to make sure people know, hey, you can go to small claims court. And I'm wondering if in general, from your experience, if you feel like people are well-prepared or would a document that would also educate people about being ready for small claims court and new limits be important? So it rides along the schism. Individuals that come into small claims court, I gotta, I have to say, are almost always well-prepared, thoughtful, earnest in their claims and in their defenses. And it's a really empowering process for them because they bring their case, if they have an opportunity to be heard, it's really a powerful process. But if in credit card cases, it's very much the opposite. And I think that's sort of in part of the process that we're talking about claims, credit card claims that are really, really old. Everybody sort of stretching the limits of the statute of limitations, of the right to bring these cases. And so that's where you often see struggles because people have dodged credit card cases, these cases for a long time, and then they come into court and they're just not prepared. And my very last question, which I've been asking our committee this week is, rather than just put in 10,000, should we add it an economic indicator so that there would be some, look at this on a regular basis without us having to remember for somebody to be thoughtful and say, oh my gosh, we haven't done this in 15 years or 20 years or whatever? I don't think necessarily so. I mean, I think this is, as you can see here, this decision is really less about, I mean, it's partially about inflation and the change in the value, what $5,000 equals today as opposed to 2007. But there's also policy decisions and it's hard to short-circuit those. Thank you. Thank you. I'm gonna have to end the questioning with Mr. Richardson. I know he has to get to another meeting and if anybody has any other questions, maybe it could connect via email. I'm certainly available and happy to do so. Right, great. Thank you very much. And I guess we will jump back on the order of our agenda. And next we have the Chief Superior Judge, Brian Greerson. I'm pretty sure he's here anyway. He is now. He is, yeah. He wasn't earlier, but I am now. Good morning. Thank you to the committee for inviting me for the record, Brian Greerson, Chief Superior Judge. I wasn't here to hear all of what Dan had to say, but I certainly heard the bulk of it. And I don't know that I disagree with his comments. You know, I have surveyed the judges who are involved in these dockets and I'm still waiting to get responses from them. And so I don't have a full response from them now. I also want the committee to be aware that we have a standing, it's called a civil oversight committee that gets involved in discussions, similar to what is going on within this committee. And they are looking as well as the civil rules committee looking at this issue that Dan was referring to around the debtor credit card cases because they, as he indicated, take up a substantial volume number in the small claims docket. The small claims docket at this point has gone through some changes that we have contemplated moving the debtor cases, credit card cases into Superior Court. One of the things that is different now than it was, I'll say a year ago, is that with the introduction of our new case management system and the transition from courts to that new case management system, and the last group of seven courts are beginning that process literally as we are speaking. So all the courts, with the exception of the Supreme Court, will be working with the new case management system by this spring. One significant change that that has brought about specifically in small claims docket is Dan's testimony is important because he probably has as much experience in the small claims docket as anyone. He sits, did sit regularly as an acting judge in the small claims docket for a number of years and does come to the committee with a wealth of experience with this docket. Because we've gone to the Odyssey system, we're not in a position, certainly at this point, to train attorneys on that system. And therefore we can no longer use attorneys as acting judges in this docket. So all of these cases will now be heard either by Superior Court judges, or in some cases I have assigned probate judges who are law-trained judges to hear these dockets. The reason that acting judges were used among other differences in the small claims docket from our other dockets is that the judge who hears the original case, the individual, the individuals, the parties can appeal the decision by the original judge to a Superior Court judge. And therefore we had used acting judges, attorneys, for these dockets so that if there was an appeal, that appeal would go to the sitting Superior Court judge. That's part of the reason that we use attorneys. So that is a significant change in this docket for us. So in looking at this proposed change, and I can understand the reason why on the surface increasing the jurisdictional limit makes sense because with the passage of time, obviously a dollar doesn't mean today what it did 10 or 15 years ago, 20 years ago. And many of the judges who have responded to me so far are in support of this change. But I think Dan has really identified the issue from what we see. This would not mean an increase in filings in the small claims docket necessarily, or not a significant increase. What it will do though is change the composition of that docket in the way that he described. And that is, we would expect again, the debtor, the credit card cases to be increased substantially in the docket by increasing the jurisdictional limit. And he again did a good job of describing that process. So that is the concern that I bring to this committee. And although I haven't had a chance to talk with Terry Corsones or Dan about the concept that he talked about, I think it is worth exploring and I will explore with the judges involved in this docket whether or not a essentially a two-tiered system for those credit card cases makes sense. As I said, and Dan indicated the Civil Rules Committee is looking at moving these credit card cases into the Superior Court. And maybe as a middle ground with this increase in the jurisdictional limit that we consider allowing small claims jurisdiction amount to increase to the $10,000, but any credit card cases would still be capped at $5,000, otherwise they'd have to file in the Superior Court. There are definitely pros and cons to that concept, but I think it's worth the court looking at that as an approach. That's the information that I have for the committee on one hand, we're not opposed to this but we're not supporting it at this point and we'd really need more time for me to get a better understanding of I think it would help the committee for me to have more input from the trial judges and the Civil Oversight Committee as to how they view this change. Great, thank you, Judge. Any questions for Judge Gerson? Barbara? Hi, Judge Gerson, do you have a sense of how long it would take for you to get that input? Oh, I expect, as I said, the Civil Oversight Committee meeting is their meeting this morning and I have circulated requests to the judges, I expect to have a more complete response by next week. Great, thank you. Yes. Selena? This may be one of the things that you can answer better with more input and information but I definitely would be interested in hearing more of your opinion on the pros and cons of the, you know, you said there are sort of pros and cons to capping the credit card limit and... Well, I think... The more you wanna share now or if you just, or if it really makes sense to say. No, I'll give you a brief comment and it really, again, it mirrors some of what Dan Richardson was saying and that is the small claims docket is designed, I mean, it was designed for small claims for the folks who are unrepresented to bring their disputes to the court to hopefully get a quick resolution. Your arguments are heard plaintiffs and defendants usually no attorneys involved. And the rules of procedure, the rules of admitting exhibits and documents, evidence to the court are relaxed. It's supposed to be a relatively quick, I'll say, I'll use the term summary in that people bring their disputes to the court, the court hears them and invariably the decisions are made on that day at that time. And that was the overarching idea behind it. That has changed over the years and to the point where the credit card industry has so dominated this docket that that's what most of the cases are. And they are a different type of case and Dan I think touched on that. They're different in that they oftentimes involve legal issues as opposed to factual disputes. You know, was the contract, did the contractor agree to do X, Y and Z for so much money and to what extent did he do it or was it done properly? That's what I think of his small claims before I was on the bench, I guess I'll say officially, I was an acting judge and did the small claims docket. And those are the kinds of disputes we would see now. Obviously this goes back some time since I've been on the bench for a while but that's the nature of the disputes that we were used to dealing with in small claims and that has changed dramatically. And so it's changed the way the courts handle these cases. And as Dan indicated, because there is a jurisdictional limit when you increase the limit, you're actually going beyond $10,000 in the sense that I'm sure there are credit card cases that are being brought now where the claim is in excess of $5,000 but they're bringing them in small claims court because they hopefully will get a quicker resolution and it's worth compromising the amount due to sometimes get that resolution quicker. I think the same thing will happen when you increase the limit to $10,000 and that is there will be claims that they're bringing that are actually, they're not gonna be able to collect over $10,000 but it'll increase the number coming in not only up to that $10,000 limit but something beyond that where they make an economic decision that will forego X amount of money because of this process. So those, you can either say that's a pro and a con that means more individuals. And for the most part, and I know that Gene Murray and others will be testifying, I think you'll find that there's clearly under represented in a lot of cases, the defendants meaning the people hold the money. This will expand that number and certainly expand to the extent that legal aid has the ability to provide representation. It'll expand the demand on them to do this. So there, those are I think some of the factors the committee needs to look at. There was a time when assistant judges, county judges did sit on these cases but that is no longer the case. And for the length of time that I have been in this position of the chief superior judge, no assistant judges have asked for training in that regard in no small part because they're not, they have become more complicated in the sense that they involve the credit card cases are more in the nature of legal arguments and matters of law. Dan mentioned the statute of limitations which is always an ongoing issue. In these cases are frequently I should say that. So the small claims court has changed over time and this would be another change and it has some benefits because it still does provide that vehicle for hopefully summary resolutions of disputes. But in raising that limit, you're also inviting the industry to continue to use the court in that fashion. Hopefully that break. Nope. Sorry. Nope. Thank you. Coach, your hand is up. You're muted coach. There you go. One of those buttons that keeps going back and forth. Good morning judge. Good morning coach. Good to see you. What I was getting feedback on from constituents with regard to the actions is, and I think you hit on it a little bit with the industry itself because what a number of folks have shared with me is the fact that the old account would be sold to a group and then it goes to another group. And so like they didn't even know that it still was out there because it already affected them negatively as a closed account and all of these things. And then two, three years later, it surfaced. In the form of a summons or something of that regard. It's kind of a global question, I guess. And I'd guess a number of witnesses, I would pose that too, is how do you think that's gonna affect because we understand the statute of limitation and yet does it move with every transaction? So like if there's a seven year limit and then it gets sold to somebody else, they get seven years and you know, I'd... Coach, that becomes the issue in many of these cases and how the statute of limitations is interpreted on an individual case depends on the facts and the paper trail, if you will, that comes into court. In other words, usually the individual who had a credit card with some company, whatever it was, years ago, they don't even recognize the name of the individual or a company that has now bought that account. And they may not have had contact with anybody for a number of years. And again, I think Jean, Ms. Murray, can explain from the client's perspective what that's like. But that's the issue that we deal with. That's why when I'm talking about these collections become more of a legal question. It's okay, you now have this account. How did you get this account? Who did you get the account from? And being able to document all the way back to the original credit card company, how this company that is now before the court do they have the appropriate legal standing to bring this claim? And that's what these, that may be an oversimplification of these issues, but that's really what they come down to. And it becomes therefore an industry. And I think Dan, again, indicated, it is an industry. There are thousands of cases filed. That's, in some respects, that is certainly not what Small Claims was designed for. Thank you. And that answers your question, but if not. But it's part of the discussion, I think. Right. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Any other questions for Judge Gererson? Thank you, Judge. Thank you. Thanks for inviting me. Sure. And next up, we'll have Pat Gable, the Vermont State Court Administrator. Good morning, everyone. And I will be, as soon as I turn off my phone here, I will be very brief in my comments. But I did want to respond to Representative Rachel Simms' concerns about the issue of education and support of self-represented litigants or, as I think of them, unrepresented litigants who are in the court system in this area and many others, just to let the legislature know that the judiciary is in the process of standing up our Access and Resource Center. And we're doing that with grant support from the National Center for State Courts. And this center, although physically, it will have a space in Costello Courthouse in Burlington, is really being set up to provide statewide support to users of the court system. And as you know, most of the users of the court system are not represented by counsel. And so this will become a big change for us in the sense that, historically, we perhaps have been more inward focused in terms of our court procedures and the Access and Resource Center is leading the way for us to be much more focused on what you might call in another industry, customer service. And that will be very important for education, training, and direct support for people who find themselves in the court system without preparation. So we're sort of in the early days of setting that up, but it's a very exciting initiative for us. So over time, we really want to make it easier for people who would rather not be there, but they are. And an example in small claims is, and you've heard Dan and Judge Gerrison have both been, I think, very articulate in terms of the pros and cons of that docket. But there are a lot of rights that people have as debtors that they wouldn't necessarily know about and under certain scenarios would not have the opportunity, for example, the fact that their social security income may not be available to be collected or that sort of thing. And so I just wanted the legislature to be aware of our activities there and the resources, we hope to stand up for that. Often we find ourselves working on the same issues that you're working on, and that's why we really appreciate the partnership that we have with House Judiciary as we do problem-solving about this. You're muted, representatives. Thank you. Could you read my lips? I asked any questions. Great, thank you, Pat. Thank you. And next, we're gonna go out of order a little bit and we're gonna hear from representative David Yacovoni, he has to get back to his other committee. So he's gonna jump in next. Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. I don't have a lot to offer, I'll be very brief. I'm very grateful that the committee is looking into this and considering it. I offered it in hopes of helping Vermonters that struggled with affording legal representation and by increasing it, it would be helpful that way. I didn't, at the time, I introduced it, I appreciate the nuances or complexities regarding the credit cards. I am, as a sponsor, though I would say from what I've heard, I certainly would be supportive of some type of split jurisdictional limits, if you will, to help address that issue. Thank you so much for your thoughtfulness today. I wish I could stay, but I can't. Please don't interpret that as indifference or lack of interest, thank you. No, certainly understand. And I think if I had a little more experience in the chair seat, I probably would have had you go first, which is a lot of times is the norm, as far as introducing a bill, but thank you for your input. You're welcome. Thank you, folks. Great. Next, Terry Croissons, the Executive Director of the Vermont Bar Association. Hi, thank you, Chair Burtitt. And thank you all. I'm Terry Croissons, Vermont Bar Association Executive Director. Mike Bailey kindly asked me a week ago for comments regarding the proposed bill. So I did, the testimony today is not a position of the Vermont Bar Association, but it's based on a solicitation of comments from our practice and procedures section, which is a civil practitioners primarily, our solo and small firm section. Again, practitioners who would be familiar with the small claims docket. And I also communicated with a number of acting judges in small claims, such as Dan Richardson. So he and I spoke and I did submit a memo that Mike has posted that summarizes the comments and also provides an overview of many of the issues that have been discussed so far. It's in the documents for today. And I also had reached out to Representative Yacoboni just asking in terms of what was the genesis of the proposal and came to find out that Attorney David Polo, who is one of his constituents had suggested it. And in the materials also is a letter from Attorney Polo describing his perspective and his reasons for requesting it. So I wanted to just mention that to you that that's available. The memo also includes a link to what is happening across the 50 states in terms of small claims core jurisdictional limits and other, I guess, measures that are relevant to the proposed bill. I did in terms of the comments that were received, they were universally in support of an increase for many of the reasons that have been described already, particularly by Dan in terms of it offering the small claims core a more economical and quick resolution of cases in this within the jurisdictional limit. To give you a little bit of a background, when small claims was introduced $2,000 was the limit. And then that was increased to about $3,500 limit in 1995 and then increased to the present $5,000 limit in 2007. So it seems like there's been an increase roughly every 12 to 14 years. So just as that by way of background. And in the New England states, now the average limit is $6,000 and that's based on a range again in the six states from Rhode Island with 2,500 and New Hampshire with 10,000. Nationwide, it appears that the average is about 8,500 ranging again from 2,500 being the lowest and 25,000 in a couple of states is the highest. So it seems as if the proposed limit is within the range of what's happening. I do have actually a New England Bar Association meeting today at noon and I asked for this to be on the agenda. I'm happy to check and see if any of the other New England states are considering adjustments to their limits. So that would be helpful information to you. But I wanted to just- I think that would be, that's great, Terri. Okay, just I'm trying to kind of touch upon things that might not have been touched upon before so as not to repeat too much. In terms of the concerns about credit card cases and those were included in the comments that practitioners had a concern that this would cause a flood of credit card cases within that new range. But the mention that has been made of what other states have done in terms of the example that in the memo is in Washington, I'm sorry, in Minnesota, for example, the small claims limit is 15,000 but is 4,000 for claims involving consumer credit transactions. Another example is in Washington state, the small claims limit is 10,000 if bought by a natural person, an individual versus a company or an entity. And it's $5,000 for all other cases. So I do agree with everyone saying that there is a difference in those cases. I served as an acting judge in small claims court in Portland for a number of years. And agree with Judge Gerson and Richardson that it's a very helpful, I think, an efficient vehicle for the cases that small claims court was designed to let people come in and have a quick and fair resolution of their issues. To give you an example of the timeframe, the disposition goal that the Supreme Court sets for small claims court cases is four months and the disposition goal for standard cases they call it major civil or the other civil division cases is 18 months. So there's that difference in the timeframe. The filing fee in the regular civil division is $295. The filing fee in small claims currently is $65 if it's a thousand or less or $90 if it's more than a thousand. So there is quite a bit of difference in terms of the cost and that's completely exclusive of the attorney's fee. So I think any personally, any efforts to make small claims more accessible for those cases that it was designed for, for the monitors who wanna be able to have an economical and expeditious way to handle these disputes, I think it would be helpful to make it as accessible as possible. The other, only other thing I was going to just mention so as not to repeat what has been said already in terms of acting judges and it looks like Judge Greerson, Good and Pat are still on. One thing that occurred to me cause I feel that the work that acting judges have done in the small claims court has been very invaluable. Typically it's done completely voluntarily. There's a very nominal, I think stipend that's available. I know I never put in more and I think most of the acting judges didn't so it's a volunteer service. With the Odyssey, my question would be whether or not it wouldn't be possible to allow just limited access, very limited access only to the small claims docket to acting judges and only limited access to that small handful of small claims court orders that would be through Odyssey. If that would be a way to I guess accommodate and acknowledge the fact that it'll be e-filing statewide within the next year. And that would be one way that practitioners and typically the acting judges in small claims are very experienced civil trial practitioners for them to be able to provide a service and assist especially given the fact that I'm just gonna assume that the caseload in civil division is going to increase very dramatically once the more time on evictions and foreclosures is lifted and in the backlog that's been building up during the pandemic in general. If this wouldn't be a way that the bar would be able to help in the small claims docket and because the regular superior court judges who are doing small claims now I'm sure may not have as much availability for the small claims docket so that it's not neglected down the road. So that was the only other thing I was going to add that suggestion as to whether or not that might be feasible. Otherwise as Judge Berson said, certainly for the civil division oversight committee and the rules committee to weigh in and I'm happy to solicit other comments from the bar in general but those were the comments that were received from the acting small claims judges whom I communicated with and then the sections that typically work in the civil division. Oh, one other thing I was going to mention representative Rachelson when you'd asked about an automatic increase there was one state that did build in every five years an adjustment based on the consumer price index and that was in Nebraska. So there was that, I guess possibility. Great, thank you, Terry. Any questions for Terry? Thank you very much. You're welcome. Thank you. And next up, excuse me, we'll hear from Falco Schilling, Advocacy Director of the ACLU. Good morning and for the record, my name is Falco Schilling. I'm the Advocacy Director for the ACLU of Vermont and thank you so much for having me here today. Since this isn't a short form bill my testimony will also be quite brief. So this is an issue that after receiving the request for testimony I circled back with some of the attorneys in our office about this bill to get their thoughts and as the bill stands right now we're not supportive of the bill as drafted which is looking at the jurisdictional limit increase for a number of the reasons that folks have expressed today largely about the power imbalances will be created by increasing this limit especially for lower income Vermonters who are unrepresented and then having to adjudicate claims of an even higher amount against companies that are providing well-represented attorneys against those claims. So that's one of our major concerns also just the general lack of due process that does exist within many of the small claims courts increasing that jurisdictional limit could have a negative impact on folks for a higher amount who are being adjudicated against for a higher amount than they currently are though it's been a good discussion and that the committee looks at this bill moving forward if they have tweaks or changes or new proposals be happy to look at those and examine those but just looking at the bill as it is today with just the straight up raise in the jurisdictional limit that is not something that we are supportive of. Great, thank you. Any questions? Selena? Do you think the proposal around the split jurisdiction and all limits with credit card companies in particular gets at your concerns or is there my suspicion from what you've just stated is there still might be a whole? That's something I- There's other kinds of claims out there that would still be tough for people. So that's something that I would like to talk to some of the attorneys in my office who have a little bit more experience on. I think the issues that need to be considered in a proposal like that would be how we define who is bringing those claims, what creditors are bringing those claims and then what those limits are. So those are two things that I think would definitely need to be considered in any proposal like that. Any other questions? Great, thank you. Thank you. And next up we have the staff attorney for Vermont Legal Aid, Jean Murray. Thank you very much. I am Jean Murray. I'm a staff attorney at Vermont Legal Aid. I have been involved in credit card collections, well, not just credit card collections, collection cases for over a decade. I came to the practice in the last time we were in an economic downturn. And at that time, the filings in both Superior Court and Small Claims Court were double what they are now. So I really appreciate this committee taking an opportunity to think about how best to administer justice both across Small Claims and the Superior Court. I am not shy about getting very concrete about what these numbers are and what is actually going on with credit card cases in Small Claims. I recommend to you, because this is where I started, every year the judiciary makes a report about the cases that it hears in all its different dockets in the civil docket, in the criminal docket, et cetera. In the civil docket, 70% of the cases across both Superior Court and Small Claims Court are corporations and businesses suing debtors. And that, so I'm including in that 70% foreclosure, eviction and collections cases. Collections cases in Superior Court represent 20% of the docket. In Small Claims, credit card collection cases represent 70% of the docket. I have compared one year to another. I think I was looking at fiscal year 2018 and 2019 and in one year, the percentage, if you look at it by the credit card company that is suing, in one year, each credit card company that was suing or debt buyer that was suing, moved more cases into Small Claims. So going from 83% one year to 89% the next year, going from 95% one year to 98% of the cases that Midland funding, which is a debt buyer of credit card cases, 98% of them in fiscal year 2019 were filed in Small Claims. So why is Small Claims so attractive to these corporations? Because the rules of Small Claims are relaxed. They don't have to bring, they don't have to meet an evidentiary standard that they would in superior court. The way the process is set up, it's set up to be regular people being able to bring their disputes. So the forms for answers are simplified which credit card companies take advantage of. So I appreciate that to take a broader view of how the courts are administering justice is I think an appropriate thing to do right now during the pandemic. Of all the people who, of the defendants who are represented in collection cases, in superior court, maybe 10% of the defendants are represented by counsel. In Small Claims court, only 2% are represented by counsel and if we take me out of it, me personally, one attorney at Vermont Legal Aid, it goes down to 1% are represented by counsel. In the last 10 years, I have represented over 600 people in debt collection cases and that includes both credit card cases and repossession deficiencies which are mostly in superior court. So 100% of credit card collection cases are represented by attorneys compared to 2% of defendants in Small Claims. So to me, if you look at how the system backs the defendants in Small Claims, I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. To me, if you look at how the system balances, it doesn't. And what does this have to do with a $10,000 limit in Small Claims court? Just means if taken how the rules are today, if the limit was increased to $10,000, credit card collectors would abandon superior court altogether. They really don't like to have to prove things according to the rules of evidence that they'd be in Small Claims. And what that would do to my way of thinking would be to just turn a piece of the Verrant Judiciary into a rubber stamp for collections for credit cards because with that volume of cases, whether it's regular judges or acting judges, people like Dan Richardson said, it feels like an assembly line already. And I think that the notion that these cases should actually take time and require people to prove, require credit card companies to prove their cases. The temptation would be great to figure out a more efficient way of doing that. So look at it from the other side, which is what happens to defendants. What happens to individual people who are brought to court for the first time. Gene, before you get onto your next topic, can I have Selena jump in with a question? Sure. I can't actually wait until the testimony is complete. I just wanted to get into the queue. Okay, great. Thank you. So one of the other really astounding things that I've observed because I was able to obtain the data of all of the actual cases, all the data that the judiciary uses to make its report, I was able to obtain that. And so I was able to, to count people that fit into different categories. I'm sorry, I lost my train of thought. That, oh, the attorneys, the credit card companies, when they sue, they need to use because of some federal rules that pass, they need to use law firms that are able to comply with certain confidential confidentiality rules around credit card information, right? So it turns out that most of the credit card cases in Vermont are brought by attorneys from out of state firms. Well, they're admitted in Vermont, but the firm is actually outside of the state of Vermont. Most of the credit card cases are brought by just a handful of attorneys. 64% of the cases in small claims were brought by just three attorneys. How many cases are brought in small claims? About 5,000 cases are brought in small claims in the years that I was studying. And as I say, 70% of them are credit card cases. So that means three attorneys are filing 64% of all of the cases in small claims. One attorney between the 100 and so cases that he signed the pleadings for in Superior Court and the 1,900 cases he signed the pleadings for in small claims court, one attorney in one year signed the pleadings for 2,000 cases. So I'm an officer of the court and I want to follow all of the ethical rules and I want to follow all of the pleading rules. And one of the ethical rules is when you sign a pleading, you have to know that the evidence exists for the claim that you're bringing. So you have to review the evidence in order to sign the pleadings or at least the evidence at the beginning of the case. You need to review that. So somebody is signing pleadings for 2,000 cases a year. So I'm going to show you how much time do they have to review the evidence for each case? So I say that as a way of illustrating what I think is the size of the problem. The problem is that already in small claims, credit card companies are the big gorilla and they can sit wherever they want. They can ask for what they want. They can ask for what they want. In order for these three or four attorneys to be able to come to the hearings that are scheduled, already the clerks in the various counties have to coordinate with each other and stagger their collections days so the attorneys can be able to appear. Now, if I would love to go to the court and say, hey, please stagger all of my cases. I don't have the weight to pull that off. As a person who only represents 60 to 100 defendants a year, I don't have the weight to pull that off. Credit card companies do. So what does this have to do with jurisdictional limit? It doesn't really. If it were not for credit card cases, if it was not for represented corporations using small claims to sue unrepresented people, I don't have really much of an opinion about the jurisdictional limit. But one of the things that I really want to advocate for is that people look at the whole system and how it is being used and who it is being used against. And I think, I mean, I've identified credit card collections as a place where the playing field is not even. And so to the extent that the jurisdictional limit further makes that playing field unequal, I oppose it. But the other thing I know, and Dan Richardson and Judge Burson have already mentioned it, is right now, the regular processes in the judiciary, which have to do with rules committees and oversight committees, they're considering this question of how best to administer justice in credit card cases. And they're doing that right now. As a matter of fact, I've been looking forward for two months to the civil committee, and I've been looking forward to this morning at nine o'clock. And then this committee scheduled this. And I'm like, how can I be in two places at once? It worked out. But like, it's, it's one of those things. Even as we speak, things are changing. But I would not want one thing to get tinkered with, without looking at what the whole. System is doing to individuals. That's the other thing I was going to briefly touch on. I'm going to talk a little bit more about what the judge has brought and gets a judgment against them. Small claims judgments are not. You know, many judgments. They are judgments that can be used. Just like any other judgment. A judgment can be a lean on real property. A judgment can give the judgment creditor. The ability to seek a wage assignment. A judgment can give the judgment creditor an ability to freeze money. A judgment can give the judgment creditor an ability to freeze money. All of those things get done. The anomaly that happened in the Northeast kingdom a couple of years ago. Where, and it wasn't, I got to say, it was not a credit card collector that was doing it. It was another kind of creditor was using the small claims court to get people arrested in order to squeeze money out of them. Which should never have happened. But it did call attention to. That. As well. But it certainly needs to be understanding and a, a better administration of how things happen in small claims court. So if, if I'm a. Defendant and I have a judgment against me. Right now in Vermont that accrues 12% interest. Which means. go ahead and make this payment plan. If the person doesn't estimate the payment large enough to cover the 12% accruing interest, then they could be paying forever. There's another thing in Vermont which allows, there's a statute of limitations on judgments. They're only good for eight years, but they can be renewed by filing a new case in court. And so a judgment and the ability to collect on it could be extended forever. There's nothing that limits it from how long it could be extended and 12% interest is accruing the whole time. People are exempt from collection. When they're exempt from collection, that does not mean interest is suspended on a judgment. And so if the reason you're exempt from collection, let's say is because you are suffering a temporary setback or a loss of income for a temporary reason. Once you get your income back, you could, the judgment is still there, still accruing 12% interest. Our exemption laws are quite, our exemption laws says your income, if your income is less than the federal minimum wage times 40 hours a week, which is $7.25 times 40, which is $290 a week, that income is exempt from collection. Right now, Vermont's minimum wage is $11 and that would make $400 a week exempt from collection, but that's not our law right now. So there are a number of things where a judgment in small claims or superior court could, and somebody had a question about statute limitations and credit reporting, a credit card, anybody who believes they are owed a debt needs to file a lawsuit within six years or they lose the ability to file a lawsuit. Credit card collectors believe that their inability to file a lawsuit does not mean that they are unable to collect, so they can keep trying to collect. So once somebody misses a payment on a credit card, the credit card company calls the credit bureaus and says a payment is missed, that first time that's called an adverse action. The federal law says adverse actions can only be on your credit report for seven years since the first report. So whether it gets paid or not, it should fall off a credit report after seven years, except if someone gets a judgment, that's a new adverse action that starts that seven-year clock running again. Should the fact that the original credit card debt gets sold to a debt buyer start the clock again? No, it shouldn't, but as a matter of fact, it often does because of sloppy reporting. So if there's a judgment against you, your financial life could get wrecked for quite some time and what does that mean? That means when you try to apply for an apartment, somebody does a credit check and you don't get the apartment, it means that you could find your bank account suddenly empty or frozen. It means that you are operating under a stress for a long time. So I want credit card cases in the first instance, whether or not the credit card company is entitled to a judgment and how much of a judgment are they entitled to? I want that to be adjudicated under the same rules and laws that any other person gets to bring to court. I don't see why there should be a lesser form of judges justice simply because there are so many credit card cases. I get a little wound up about this stuff. I really thank you for your kind attention. So I hope this committee continues to think about things like jurisdictional limit and the other issues that I've mentioned. And I don't think it, to me, this thing is in a yes or a no, it's how do we make the whole thing better? Great, thank you. We appreciate your commitment and passion for sure. Nope, we have three people now. First, Selena, then Barbara, and then Coach. Thank you so much. This has been really, really helpful and compelling and thank you for your work. And I will just know, I was just recalling, we did have a bill a few years back that was really looking at, I believe was really looking at credit card collection and that legal aid was a very powerful advocate for and my memory is that that bill didn't make it across the finish line, but your testimony today is making me feel like we really had to revisit that subject and those proposals, but that is an aside. And my question is, so you have spoken a lot about sort of, I guess what I would call the predatory collection practices of credit card companies. I don't want to put words in your mouth there, but I'm wondering if there's other frequent represented corporate plaintiffs who are also commonly bringing these collection cases, kinds of collection cases to small claims or if it really is largely or purely limited to credit card companies. From my study and the way I do it because the judiciary doesn't quite keep this data, but I am familiar enough with the names of plaintiffs that I can identify this plaintiff as an original creditor, credit card company. This plaintiff is a debt buyer of credit cards. So it is a little surprising. It is mostly credit cards, both the original creditors and the debt buyers. The next biggest plaintiff in small claims is actually the Department of Labor trying to recoup overpaid unemployment benefits. In terms of the credit collectors altogether, they aren't in small claims. The next biggest group is the auto credit collectors finance lenders and they are coming to court after they have repossessed vehicles and they're coming for the repossession deficiency. They aren't as, there aren't as many of those as there are credit card collections. So for instance, if I took all the numbers for credit card collections, both in superior court and in small claims, it comes out to in fiscal year 2019, something like 5,000 and auto repossession collectors are maybe 400 cases a year. And certainly I'm not even looking at the foreclosure docket. If you wanted to look at banks as big corporations who are suing, that is about 20% of the civil docket, which means about 1,000 cases a year. Back a decade ago in the economic downturn, it was 2,000 cases a year, 2,500 cases a year. And I guess a follow-up question, really what I'm trying to get at with this question is to understand if this bill, if we followed the suggestion of some of the witnesses and we did a split jurisdictional limit so that credit cards sort of stayed at the current limit or maybe we could go lower. And the other claims went up to a $10,000 limit. Is the bill really supportable at that point or does there remain a sort of smaller but universe of folks who are still subject to claims from represented corporate lenders of other kinds that would then like we wouldn't wanna carve out just this one group when there's this smaller universe of folks with the exact same issue, right? Right, so nationally, people who pay attention to collections, nationally, people look at medical debt collections, they look at, well, I guess I lump them in with credit card collections because I have had a number of cases where somebody got some dental work or got a computer or whatever and wherever they went to finance that was essentially a credit card company. They didn't know it at the time but their dentist had a brochure that said use this to finance this. So there is a little bit of that kind of medical debt, things that wouldn't be covered by insurance or Medicaid. There's a little bit of that kind of debt collection in small claims. There is some, not as much as you would imagine but there is some for the places that rent home furnishings like rent a center or errands or other places. They do come to small claims every once in a while to try to pursue debt collection but not as much as you would think that they do. And there is a really thorough bill about those kind of rent to own personal goods things that Vermont has already protected consumers on that front. So if people were represented by council and I've done a couple of those rent a center kind of cases and I say rent a center is a general thing because I wasn't exactly, it was never a rent a center that I was, the opposing party represented by council, people can do pretty well in those cases but I don't know if anybody can do well not represented by council with those kind of complicated cases. That's helpful, thank you. Barbara? Thank you so much. I am wondering, it sounds like corporate businesses or corporations sort of hijacked small claims courts. So I'm wondering if it makes sense to define what a small claims court is and really have it be individual, go back to the individuals, have a way to address other individuals. And just because it doesn't matter if it, as you said, if it's what kind of company, but like somebody who's gonna sort of gain the system and I've got to say 12%, like that has got to be readjusted for like where can you get 12% interest anywhere? Like you could see why people would be trying to get as much of that. Like that needs to have, I'm hoping no matter what that we look at that and say, look right now the interest rate, you know, it can't be more than 1% above prime or something. Like it is, maybe I'm not using the right term but that is really taking advantage and same thing with the 290 a week. Like it's got to be tied to something. But I feel like small claims courts had a really important purpose. And now all of a sudden we're hijacked and we're held hostage by not doing what's right for the little guys because the big guys are taking advantage. And I'm wondering and maybe Terry knows but has some state addressed this and can we legally do anything about this? I have got to just say that it is appalling and I appreciate you doing the data crunching for us. Yeah. I mean, I would appreciate somebody besides me doing the data crunching because I know from civil oversight the fellow that represents credit card collectors, Allen Birkey, he looks at the same data set I do and he crunches it and he comes up with one thing and I come up with another thing. And I don't think I don't want to undercut myself. I really do believe these are basically the numbers but I think it would be worthwhile to figure out what exactly is going on. So when I was in, when Legal Aid was invited to come talk to this committee I did some phone calling around to try and figure out how this, what was behind this proposal? And I ended up talking to attorney David, well, emailing back and forth with attorney David Palo and his notion was that small claims court would be able, if you raise the jurisdictional limit then unrepresented plaintiffs could have a better chance of getting justice from insurance companies that they couldn't otherwise afford to take to court. And certainly as a Legal Aid lawyer I would like to know that small claims court is there for tenants to sue to get their security deposits back when sometimes landlords aren't willing to give them or to be able to get the value of things that have been destroyed by someone else. I used to do a lot of family law and people who are not married but had relationships with each other and somebody walks off with the car and doesn't pay for it. You wanna be able to go back and say, hey, pay me back for the car you took. So I think, I mean, I can think of a lot of ways that small claims would be very, very helpful to just regular people. And I don't want there to be no small claims. And I'm not even sure that I want, for regular people I guess I haven't given it a ton of thought like what would I adjust about the procedural rules and the evidentiary rules? What would I adjust so that regular people could do small claims better? Maybe a few things, but it's the way it is now it is fine for regular people. It is just not fine for credit card corporations to take advantage of. In my, I mean, I guess one of the things I think is that if anybody remembered the foreclosure crisis, the federal government came and gave banks a lot of money so that they could do modifications of the loans so that people wouldn't lose their homes. And then it turned out that banks weren't actually doing that. And so Vermont made it so that all the banks had to go to mediation to prove that they were going through the steps to qualify that folks were qualified for these modifications so that they could keep their homes. That whole process is called loss mitigation. And the banks could have always had a loss mitigation department to work with their consumers so that people could get back in good stead with their credit. So credit card companies could do that too. They could have loss mitigation. They could do things to get their borrowers back in good stead, but because courts are so easy and so accessible for them, they come to court instead. They don't maintain their own internal loss mitigation rehabilitation departments, but they come to court and get judgments. So I would like to make it difficult for credit card companies to get judgments because I think if they got backed up that way they may go back to instituting loss mitigation rehabilitation departments. Thank you. Coach? Gene, thank you very, very much for your advocacy and legal aids advocacy. The bill that Selena was referring to is H904 and it was in the last session. It didn't come to our committee, which I find interesting, even though a lot of the statutory requirements seemed to fall within our jurisdiction. And the 12% was part of that bill's discussion. Almost everything you said in your testimony was in this bill, this proposed bill. I'm trying to think other than what you've already answered for us with representative racial sins, questions and representative Colburn's questions. If you were a leader of the world and you could propose a bill for us to look at, you know, without getting into the minute detail, what would that be? It's interesting. Senator Clarkson has started a conversation about statute of limitations. In the bill that we worked on before, one of the problems of statute of limitations is the reviving of debt by making a payment. So let's say I couldn't pay on my credit card and a year went by, I couldn't pay on my credit card and a year went by. We have a six-year statute of limitations. They would have five years to sue me. But I decide I'm going to dig in and start making a payment. Once I make a payment, the six years starts over again. So one of the things that we had in that bill was that making a payment didn't revive the statute of limitations time clock. Other states have shorter statute of limitations, other states have longer statute of limitations, but the amount of time that the possibility of being sued hangs over your head is an important thing. To me, taking the word federal out of 12 VSA 3170, which is federal proceeds minimum wage, taking the word federal out of it would be the easiest thing to do because then that would exempt Vermont minimum wage and it would protect a whole lot of other struggling families from being compelled to pay debts through wage assignment and for other reasons, it would exempt those people who are working at minimum wage. One of the places in that bill that was the most worked out between all of the parties had to do with the process for bank freezes. So when you're a judgment creditor, reaching out to somebody else and saying, you're holding the money of somebody who owes me money. It's called trustee process. So an employer is subject to trustee process in the form of wage assignment and a bank is subject to trustee process in terms of money held in the account. The process that Vermont has for the summons to trustee, which is freeze the account to let the court decide how much of what's in the account should go to the creditor. That process does not work. It is not uniform. It is used differently. People respond to it differently. And so one of the parts of that bill that we had all worked out was to address that trustee process on banks and assuring that the orders that go to banks to hold on to somebody's money never made them refuse the minimum amount of money, which right now is $700. It was set at $700 in the 1980s. In other words, you have a bank account with money in it. $700 should never go to a creditor. It should be there for you to be able to pay your bills. Well, in the 80s, maybe a month's worth of bills with $700. If you took that $700 and translated it into today's money, it would be closer to $1,700. And yet we're only protecting $700. So, okay. Major categories, I would do something to update the exemptions. I would do something to change the interest rate, at least on judgments based on consumer debt. I would do something to change, to do some protections around the statute of limitations. And I would do something to make it that a judgment could not be renewed in perpetuity. I had a person come to me who was being sued in Vermont. And it was based on a debt from 20 years before. And 20 years before she had lived in New Hampshire and had fled a domestic violence situation. So she didn't get her mail. So a credit card case became a judgment in New Hampshire. And then that got imported into Vermont and with full faith and credit and renewed into a Vermont judgment. She didn't know about that. And then renewed again. She didn't know about that. And it was the third time that they were seeking to renew it, that they finally got ahold of her and served her with it. And she went, I know about this credit card debt. My son was two at the time. He just graduated college. I mean, that kind of situation shouldn't ever, ever exist. That a judgment can be renewed forever. It doesn't make any sense to me at all. So those are the things that I would change. Gene, thank you very much. That is very helpful. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions? Salina is your hand up. Yeah, it is. So I'm just, I'm, I'm knowing that today is our bill drafting deadline. And I'm sort of looking at the history of the, so there's a little bit of a side of ways question. I'm looking at the history of the. The history of the judiciary. And I think it's something that it was, it was, it was a little bit of a issue and both it looks like as coach noted, representative Marc Hot introduced a bill last biennium and there was a bill as, as I think you know, we're noting that. Needed through the house, but not the Senate will. Lot of to be in discussion. And that did come through the judiciary committee. I'm just wondering if legal, if you know, of that by any, I can follow up with Wendy Morgan, if not. Well, I'd appreciate it if you contacted Wendy. So since the pandemic and the shutdown, as passionate as I am about debt collection, I have had to switch and really work on protecting renters. So Legal Aid has worked on the eviction moratorium and we expect that we're gonna do that again this session. And we worked a lot on and with the rent payment program and we will be doing that again because there's now new federal money. So in other words, I really think debt collection deserves attention, but when we looked at all of the things that we were working on and the resources that we had for them, we, me, I, Wendy, Legal Aid generally is focusing a lot of its time on keeping Vermonters housed right now. And so as much as I would like to renew some of the ideas in the bill, we had last biennium or go forward, we didn't actually think that the legislature would have capacity to deal and we didn't. And I really regret that, but I. That's very helpful context. And I'm reminding myself that it's a two year biennium. So maybe there's some collaborative work that some of us could do on this heading into next session when maybe our capacity will look different. And I would certainly be working with you and others on that. Any other questions for Jean? Great, thank you, Jean. Thank you very much. Committee, I guess we'll be wrapping up for the day and the week. Yeah, check, I don't think the agenda's out yet for next week, but if it's not out today, it'll definitely be out by Monday and see what we have going forward. And thank you to all our witnesses and have a great weekend and enjoy this sunshine from the inside, cause it's cold outside.