Which courts should users be able to file in?

[nonprofittechy]

Is housing court the only court you can file a small claims action in? I think district court too, right?

[samglover]

It seems like it should, yes. The interview metadata contains this:

allowed_courts: 
    - "Boston Municipal Court"
    - "Housing Court"
    - "District Court" 

I suspect this comes from the related website and existing Guide & File interview, which appears to limit online submissions to those three courts. See:

[nonprofittechy]

The interview metadata doesn't directly control the list of available courts--at one point it did, but it was too indirect a location to control it.

instead, just directly set the value of allowed_courts. Usually the first line of the interview order block.

[nicoledimitri]

In the 1/13/25 feedback document that Felipe sent us on Friday, 1/24/25, the first "question from Suffolk" suggests letting the user know which courts he or she may file in at the beginning of the interview. Does that suggestion only apply if there are fewer acceptable courts than the three we have, or is it something we want to add to the interview regardless of the court count?

[nonprofittechy]

I'm not sure what that information will do for a user so early in the interview. Did the feedback explain?

[nicoledimitri]

It didn't explain further, no. Here are the MATC's answers from the document I received on Friday. Some of their answer spaces appear to be blank, so I'm not sure if they made another version? This is what I have from them:

"Questions from Suffolk

1. From what I can tell from the small claims page the G&F interview is only available in three courts: Boston Municipal Court, Housing Court, and District Court. That must be why this one is limited to those three courts, too. If that should not be the case, let us know and we can change it. If not, we should probably notify the user before they start.

• MTC Response:

2. The PDF claim form only has space for one plaintiff, one attorney, and up to two defendants. However, the interview does not limit the number of plaintiffs, attorneys, and defendants. Should it limit them to the number on the form? If not, how should we include the additional names?

• MTC Response:

3. Several screens could use some additional explanation for the user, or we could simplify the language to be plainer. These include:

• When asking for defendants' information, it might be more helpful to call them "the person you want to sue”?
• Military affidavit question, to explain why it is being asked.
• Claim amount, to clarify what is being asked for.
• Describe your claims, to use plainer language.
• Exhibit upload, to use plainer language.
• Mediation, to remove the "alert" box and use plainer language.

4. Finally, there is one bug we are still working on. The interview should give the user the option to sign after printing, but currently it requires them to sign on screen."

[nonprofittechy]

Hmm. This looks mostly like our own questions, without any response from MATC. Worth double-checking this.

[samglover]

Correct. The court hasn't actually given us its responses, yet.

[samglover]

Any BMC, district court, or housing court division, whichever courthouse. Let's make sure this is how it currently works.