Byzantine, needless procedures make it too hard for David to sue Goliath in R.I. small-claims court

RJ Peltz-Steele with Google Gemini CC0 1.0

A Savory Tort Investigation (Continued) 

Following up my eye-opening journey through the byzantine processes of small-claims filing, I wrote this week to my Rhode Island state legislators and to the state attorney general recommending some reforms.

To the legislators, I urged the following reforms to the small-claims court process.

1. Filing should not cost a complainant the inconvenience and expense of notary service.
2. Filing should not preclude a complainant from providing a valid service-of-process address for a respondent’s registered agent.
3. Filing should not charge a complainant with the responsibility of generating for the respondent hardcopies of an answer form, instructions, and interpreter instructions in four languages, requiring a filing portfolio of 19 pages, plus a second copy, for a complaint of only one or two lines.
4. Service of process to in-state defendants should not require of a complainant the inconvenience and expense of enlisting, in person, the services, personally executed, of a sheriff or constable.

"Most importantly," I wrote, "especially for individual non-lawyers who would sue well represented corporations, these conditions represent utterly unnecessary barriers to access to justice."

To the attorney general, I suggested that the office should not shirk its responsibility to exercise concurrent enforcement authority with federal agencies, especially to stop plain violations of state consumer protection law, such as deceptive sales practices. 

The full letter appears below.

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September 4, 2026

Rep. Jennifer Smith Boylan & Sen. Pamela J. Lauria, 82 Smith St., Providence, RI

Hon. Peter F. Neronha, 150 S. Main St., Providence, R.I.

Dear Representative, Senator, and Attorney General:

I enclose for your information a blog article about a small claims lawsuit I am prosecuting in Rhode Island Small Claims Court. The article suggests some needed reforms to strengthen consumer protection, including issues I wish to highlight for your consideration.

There is much not to like about the experience that led me to file a small claim. And the law being what it is, at both state and federal levels, my prospects to prevail are slim, for myriad reasons hardly related to the merits of the case. I am content to prosecute this matter anyway in the hope of pressuring the defendant and its industry to reform practices that are abusive of consumers. If at any time you would like to have a longer conversation about what state government can do to better protect Rhode Island consumers, count me in.

Meanwhile, the merits of this action really are tangential to my purpose in writing to you; rather, especially for you, Representative, and for you, Senator, I wish to highlight self-evident defects in the pleading process in small-claims court that should not be difficult to correct through legislation or simple administrative reform:

1. Filing should not cost a complainant the inconvenience and expense of notary service.
2. Filing should not preclude a complainant from providing a valid service-of-process address for a respondent’s registered agent.
3. Filing should not charge a complainant with the responsibility of generating for the respondent hardcopies of an answer form, instructions, and interpreter instructions in four languages, requiring a filing portfolio of 19 pages, plus a second copy, for a complaint of only one or two lines.
4. Service of process to in-state defendants should not require of a complainant the inconvenience and expense of enlisting, in person, the services, personally executed, of a sheriff or constable.

All of these conditions waste the time, energy, and money of complainants. Conditions (1), (3), and (4) do not pertain in small-claims court in neighboring Massachusetts; moreover, a complainant in Massachusetts can complete the whole process from home through an e-filing system, and for less money (about $62) than in Rhode Island (more than $150).

Most importantly, especially for individual non-lawyers who would sue well represented corporations, these conditions represent utterly unnecessary barriers to access to justice.

Especially for you, Attorney General, I wish to highlight an issue with the consumer protection services of your office. While I am grateful, truly, for the responsiveness of your office in general, and the capable people who work there, the office succumbs to a common malady in state consumer protection in the states, which is its blanket deference to federal authorities when a respondent is in a regulated industry, or sometimes just out of state.

As an attorney, you know as well as I do that neither jurisdiction nor venue depends on the defendant’s place of business; and that federal law in regulated industries does not wholly preempt state law.

Quite to the contrary, state AGs are vital players to hold industry to account while agencies such as FTC and DOJ only count letters. I daresay, moreover, because you do not live on a desert island, that you recognize the need for state consumer protection to step up in an era in which the federal government is pulling back from, un-staffing, and de-funding, justifiably or not, consumer support, and instead cozying up to big business.

Thus for salient example, when a Rhode Islander at home contracts with one of the few service providers in the oligopolistic airline industry, thus establishing both venue and internet jurisdiction, that contract should be regarded as worthy of the same enforcement of state consumer protection law as any in-person sales transaction on any Rhode Island main street. Such a respondent, even in a regulated industry, has no safe harbor in federal regulatory compliance from charges of deception. I understand that some preemption analyses are more complicated, such as for pharma. But concurrent authority does not excuse the AG from enforcement of state law.

Also as you well know, individuals, whether or not lawyers, usually are unable to enforce their own consumer rights, whether because of boilerplate waivers and alternative-dispute-resolution clauses, statutory rights that fail to authorize private enforcement, or simply transaction costs, including know-how. If the regulatory authorities fail to fill the gap, then industry quickly apprehends and exercises its autonomy to abuse consumers with impunity.

I thank you for your attention and welcome your further interest in these or related matters of consumer protection in Rhode Island.

Sincerely,
/s/
Rick Peltz-Steele