Special Commission on the Future of the New York State Courts

prosecutions; a Commercial Division which would be a large
scale expansion of the present Commercial Division of the
Supreme Court; a Family Division for domestic violence matters
and all matters affecting a family; a State Claims Division for
cases involving claims against the state (including cases with
claims against non-state parties and impleader claims by the
state); and a Probate Division for matters concerning estates of
decedents. There would also be a General Division to hear all
cases not otherwise being heard in the specialized divisions.
It is important to note that our proposal does not call for
these Divisions to be mandated by the Constitution. Rather,
changes to the system of Divisions, including the establishment
of new Divisions or the removal of existing ones, would be
controlled administratively so that court administrators can easily
make adjustments to reflect changed needs in the future.
The creation of Divisions should not be confused with a
continuation of our present structure and its overlapping series
of courts. The Division system strikes a balance between the
desire to maintain the specialization of judges and staff in
particular areas of law while offering judges who previously were
confined to a narrow set of responsibilities the opportunity to
exercise jurisdiction over a broad array of matters and to render
justice more globally and effectively. All Divisions would enjoy
the full panoply of the Supreme Court’s general and original
jurisdiction, and there would be no bar to a justice serving in any
one of them from simultaneously serving in another, or from
hearing a case outside the embrace of the Division to which he or
she is assigned while hearing cases in the Division.
“The compartmentalization of
subject matter into specialized
courts has created situations
where two courts are necessary
to decide all aspects of a case,
because no one court possesses
the jurisdiction to decide
all the issues.”
– Dominick <strong>Commission</strong>
(1973)
Surrogate’s Court. As noted above, our restructuring
proposal includes the merger of the Surrogate’s Court into the
newly expanded Supreme Court. We recognize that, given the
expertise Surrogate’s Court judges bring to bear on a particularly
complex area of law, some have suggested that a separate
Surrogate’s Court be maintained. We are confident, however,
that this expertise can be preserved in the Probate Division of the
Supreme Court, where these judges will be concentrated. We
believe this strikes the appropriate balance between ensuring that
judges expert in the law pertaining to the estates of decedents
A Court System for the Future, February 2007 69