Starting Your Suit

To begin an action in Small Claims Court, a person, or someone acting on his or her behalf, must come to the Small Claims Court Clerk’s office in the proper county and fill out a statement of claim. You may also use an outside service to fill out your statement of claim and electronically file it with the Court. If you are interested in starting your case this way, click on electronic filing.

The person filling out the statement of claim must be able to explain the reason for the lawsuit, know the amount of the claim, and have the legal name and address, including zip code, of the person or business that is being sued. If you are not sure of the legal name of the business, you should go to the County Clerk’s office in the county where the business is located and look up the certificate of doing business, photocopy the certificate and bring it to the court. View and print the small claims claim form.

When the claim is filed, the clerk will tell you when the case will be tried. The clerk will then send the notice of claim to the defendant by both certified mail and ordinary first class mail. The notice of claim tells the defendant when the case will be tried and gives a brief statement of your claim and the amount of money you are seeking. If the copy of the claim sent by ordinary mail is not returned as undeliverable within 21 days, the defendant is presumed to have received notice even if the claim sent by certified mail has not been delivered.