Answered Research · Original data analysis
New Jersey debt lawsuits: what six years of official court data show
Published 2026-07-06 · By John DiSalle · Data: New Jersey Judiciary published statistics, court years 2019–20 through 2024–25 · Download the datasets (CSV)
Key findings
- • New Jersey’s Special Civil Part contract docket — where debt collection suits up to $20,000 are filed — hit a record 336,489 cases added in court year 2024–25, up 38.6% in one year, up 80.3% from 2019–20, and more than double the 2021–22 low of 150,476.
- • Bigger debt suits are surging too: Law Division book account filings (over $20,000) rose 30% in one year to 10,227 in 2024–25 — back at the level of the six-year peak of 10,256 in 2020–21.
- • Of the 9,241 Law Division book account cases resolved in 2024–25, 33.7% ended in default judgment (3,111 cases), 39.0% were dismissed, and 21.9% settled.
- • Trials are nearly extinct: 18 book account trials statewide in 2024–25 — 0.2% of resolutions — and only 72 trials across all six years.
- • New Jersey does not publish default-judgment counts for the Special Civil contract docket, where 336,489 of these cases land — the mass tier of NJ debt litigation is also its least transparent.
Special Civil contract cases added per year
The Special Civil Part (DC docket) hears money claims up to $20,000 — this is where most consumer debt collection suits are filed. “Contract” is the Judiciary’s case category covering them. Court years run July–June; “2025” means July 2024 – June 2025.
One structural note: effective July 1, 2022, the Special Civil limit rose from $15,000 to $20,000 (and small claims from $3,000 to $5,000), so the docket’s later years include somewhat larger claims that previously belonged upstairs in the Law Division. That shift cannot account for the surge: the entire Law Division book account docket runs about 6,500–10,300 filings a year, while the Special Civil contract docket grew by more than 176,000 cases between 2022–23 and 2024–25.
The upper tier: Law Division book account suits
“Book Account” is the Law Division’s case category for suits to collect on an account — the debt suits too large for Special Civil. Unlike the Special Civil docket, the Judiciary publishes a full resolution breakdown for these.
| Court year | Filed | Resolved | Default judgment | Dismissed | Settled | Trials |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019–20 | 7,696 | 6,802 | 2,412 (35.5%) | 2,214 (32.5%) | 1,690 (24.8%) | 7 |
| 2020–21 | 10,256 | 8,933 | 2,698 (30.2%) | 3,847 (43.1%) | 2,032 (22.7%) | 4 |
| 2021–22 | 8,228 | 10,005 | 3,635 (36.3%) | 3,762 (37.6%) | 2,022 (20.2%) | 16 |
| 2022–23 | 6,476 | 6,865 | 2,381 (34.7%) | 2,635 (38.4%) | 1,455 (21.2%) | 9 |
| 2023–24 | 7,893 | 6,840 | 2,444 (35.7%) | 2,628 (38.4%) | 1,406 (20.6%) | 18 |
| 2024–25 | 10,227 | 9,241 | 3,111 (33.7%) | 3,606 (39.0%) | 2,023 (21.9%) | 18 |
Remaining resolutions are summary judgments and “other” (full counts in the Law Division CSV, which also covers the broader contract/commercial category). Resolutions in a court year include cases filed in earlier years.
Across the six years, 16,681 of 48,686 book account resolutions — 34.3% — were default judgments: the plaintiff won because the defendant never meaningfully participated. Roughly another third were dismissed, which usually means the plaintiff walked away or could not carry the case forward. Actual adjudication is vanishingly rare: 72 trials in six years, against 16,681 defaults.
What changes when defendants answer
New Jersey’s published reports do not split outcomes by whether the defendant filed an answer — but independent research does. In the largest recent analysis of answered vs. unanswered cases (California, 2021–2023, by the data scientists behind the Debt Collection Lab), cases where the defendant filed no answer ended in 78% default judgments; cases where the defendant answered produced zero defaults— 51% went to trial or judgment on the merits and 49% settled. The New Jersey numbers above point the same direction: a default judgment requires a defendant who never responded, and defaults are the single largest way the state’s fully-reported debt cases end. Answering does not guarantee a win — but not answering nearly guarantees a loss.
Methodology, limitations & sources
Special Civil figures are transcribed from the statewide “Caseload Profile” pages of the New Jersey Judiciary’s Court Managementreports for June of each court year (June 2020 through June 2025), which report the full court year July 1 – June 30. Law Division figures are transcribed from the STATE section of the Judiciary’s Civil Statisticsreports for the same months — the filings table and the “Civil Resolution Summary by Casetype.” We cross-checked every year: sub-docket rows sum exactly to the published Special Civil totals, and resolution categories sum exactly to each year’s published total resolutions. All reports were retrieved from njcourts.gov on 2026-07-06.
What this data does not show: the Judiciary’s “added” counts include reopened, reactivated, and transferred cases, not only brand-new suits. The Special Civil “contract” docket is dominated by debt collection but includes other contract disputes, and the Judiciary does not publish how Special Civil cases are resolved (no default-judgment counts for the mass tier) — the resolution mix shown here covers Law Division book account cases only, and may differ in Special Civil. The reports also do not distinguish debt buyers from original creditors, and do not report outcomes by whether the defendant answered. Landlord-tenant and small claims dockets are reported separately and are not included in the contract counts.
- New Jersey Judiciary — statistical reports (official index)
- Court Management report, June 2025 (court year 2024–25)
- Court Management report, June 2024
- Court Management report, June 2023
- Court Management report, June 2022
- Court Management report, June 2021
- Court Management report, June 2020
- Civil Statistics report, June 2025
- Civil Statistics report, June 2024
- Civil Statistics report, June 2023
- Civil Statistics report, June 2022
- Civil Statistics report, June 2021
- Civil Statistics report, June 2020
- Notice to the Bar — Special Civil limit raised to $20,000 effective July 1, 2022
- January Advisors — answered vs. unanswered case outcomes (California)
- Pew Charitable Trusts — How Debt Collectors Are Transforming the Business of State Courts
Datasets licensed CC BY 4.0 — journalists and researchers may reuse them with attribution to Answered (answeredlaw.com): Special Civil CSV · Law Division CSV. Questions: support@ellasid.com.
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Answered is self-help software, not a law firm. This analysis is general information about court statistics, not legal advice, and no individual outcome is guaranteed.