The People's Court is an American arbitration-based reality court show, featuring an arbitrator handling small claims disputes in a simulated courtroom set. Within the court show genre, it is the first of all arbitration-based reality-style programs, which has overwhelmingly become the convention of the genre. The original series ran from 1981 to 1993, and the revival ran from 1997 to 2023. Both versions ran in first-run syndication. The show ranks as the longest-running traditional court show and second-longest-running court show in general, having a total of 38 overall seasons as of the 2022–23 television year, behind only niche court show Divorce Court by 2 seasons.
The first version of The People's Court was presided over solely by former Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Joseph Wapner. The final incarnation of the show had different presiding judges: former New York City Mayor Ed Koch (1997–99), former New York Supreme Court Judge Jerry Sheindlin (1999–2001), and former Florida State Circuit Court Judge Marilyn Milian (2001–23). Milian is the show's longest-reigning arbiter, presiding over the series for 22 years.
The program is the third highest rated of court shows after only Judge Judy reruns (ended the original run in July 2021) and Hot Bench (produced by Judy Sheindlin). With Judge Judys end at 25 seasons in 2021, The People's Courts revival now boasts the genre's longest single production continuance having entered its 26th season in the 2022–23 television year (albeit having gone through 3 arbitrators). On , The People's Court won its 5th Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Legal/Courtroom Program, which officially gives it the most Daytime Emmy wins in the court show genre. In February 2023, it was confirmed that the 26th season of the revival would be its last. The final episode aired on .
Conception When John Masterson devised the original camera-in-court concept in 1975, he first pitched it to Monty Hall, the producer and host of the game show Let's Make a Deal, and his partner, producer-writer Stefan Hatos. They put a young associate, Stu Billett, in charge of selling it, but the networks were not interested. Billett later went out on his own and refined the concept into a show shot in a studio rather than a real courtroom. Small-claims court participants agreed to drop their court cases and accept binding arbitration in a simulated courtroom. The networks expressed interest, but still did not buy it; however, it did sell into the first-run syndication market. The series was executive produced by Ralph Edwards, who also created and hosted the documentary show This Is Your Life, and Stu Billett, who later went on to create Moral Court. John Masterson, whom many consider a pioneer and originator of "reality TV" also created Bride and Groom and Queen for a Day.
The People's Court is the first court show to use binding arbitration, introducing the format into the genre in 1981. The system has been duplicated by most of the show's successors in the judicial genre. Moreover, The People's Court is the first popular, long-running reality in the judicial genre. It was preceded only by a few short-lived realities in the genre; these short-lived predecessors were only loosely related to judicial proceedings, except for one: Parole (1959) took footage from real-life courtrooms holding legal proceedings. Reality Courtroom Series: 1949-2005 Before The People's Court, the vast majority of TV courtroom shows used actors, and recreated or fictional cases (as did radio before that). Examples of these types of court shows include Famous Jury Trials and Your Witness.
The People's Court has had two incarnations. The show's first life was presided over solely by former Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Joseph Wapner."TV: 'People's Court', 'Reality' in the Morning", The New York Times, September 8, 1981 His tenure lasted from the show's debut on , until , when the show was canceled due to falling ratings. This left the show with a total of 2,484 half-hour episodes and 12 seasons. The show was taped in Los Angeles during its first life. After being canceled, reruns aired in syndication until ,The Intelligencer – September 9, 1994 and on the USA Network from , to .The Intelligencer – October 16, 1995The Post Standard – June 6, 1997
On , after being out of production for four years, The People's Court was revived in first-run syndication as a 60-minute program. Former lawyer and Mayor of New York Ed Koch was chosen as arbiter, which he maintained for two seasons. By the 1999–2000 season, former New York State Supreme Court Judge Jerry Sheindlin (husband of Judy Sheindlin from Judge Judy and Judy Justice) succeeded Koch. Sheindlin only lasted one and a half seasons and was replaced towards the end of the 2000–01 season. For the remainder of the revival's run, Marilyn Milian was the judge.
Original version (1981–93) The People's Court pilot episode was taped on , with a second pilot episode taped on . The show debuted as a half-hour program on . The judge from the show's first 12 seasons (including the 1980 pilot) was Joseph Wapner. Rusty Burrell (who was a close friend of Wapner) was his bailiff,Rusty Burrell (1925–2002) was a sheriff's department court bailiff in several famous Los Angeles trials, the Manson murders, The Onion Field murder, the Patty Hearst/SLA bank robbery, and the Caryl Chessman "Red Light Bandit". Burrell had appeared on TV in the 1950s Divorce Court, and it was also his job at that show to find real attorneys to appear on camera. One of those regular Divorce Court attorneys was Judge Joseph Wapner's father. |75446|1|,00.html 'People's Court' Bailiff Dies 2002-04-21, zap2it.com; by Ken Kurson, 2000-08-04, Green magazine at Salon.com. Jack Harrell was the announcer, and Doug Llewelyn was the host and court reporter, who announced the matter of the dispute at the beginning of each trial. He also interviewed the plaintiff and the defendant after the court ruling, to gauge their responses to the verdict. Llewelyn often ended each episode with a jaunty "If you're in a dispute with another party and you can't seem to work things out, don't take the law into your own hands; you take 'em to court," which became something of a 1980s catchphrase. If a case ended with a verdict for the defendant, however, Llewelyn instead ended the episode by saying, "If someone files a lawsuit against you and yet you're convinced you've done nothing wrong, don't be intimidated. The best policy is to go to court and stand up for your rights." The cases often had pun-related names, such as "The Overdone Underthings" and "A Head with a Beer on It". Judge Wapner greeted his litigants by saying, "I know each of you has been sworn. I've read your complaint..." Occasionally, if an episode wrapped up a few minutes early, Judge Wapner fielded questions from the courtroom observers, or legal consultant Harvey Levin explained the legal reasons behind Wapner's decisions.
The People's Court dealt in small-claims matters. When the show debuted as a half-hour program in 1981, litigants could not sue for more than , which was the limit for small-claims court at the time in California. As the laws in California changed, so did this amount: in 1988, the small claims limit in California was raised to , and raised again in 1990 to . Researchers for the show examined small-claims filings in Southern California and approached the plaintiff and defendant in interesting cases. The producers offered to have Judge Wapner arbitrate the dispute if they would agree to dismiss their action and be bound by Judge Wapner's decision. Through this approach, the show could get real people with real cases. Though the show is decorated and runs like a real courtroom, it is not a real court or part of any judicial system, but instead a form of binding arbitration.
The losing party does not need to pay the judgment, as such. Instead (as is stated in the disclaimer at the end of each show), both parties are paid from a fund (set up by Ralph Edwards-Stu Billett Productions). This fund was based on the amount of the lawsuit claim, but an exact formula was not stated. The fund was to be first divided equally, then any monetary judgment ordered was subtracted from the loser's half (and presumably both halves in the case of cross judgments). Each litigant received at least what remained of their half in shows concluding with that disclaimer. The disclaimer did not call this fund an "appearance fee", a term which appeared later in connection with The People's Court and other court shows. There may have been a later period when The People's Court paid the judgment, plus expenses and only a modest appearance fee to each litigant.
Cancellation In 1993, after 12 seasons on The People's Court, Wapner was not invited back to the show. The show's producers wished to revamp the series, but they did not notify him of that decision, which he eventually learned of from his brother-in-law, who read about it in the San Francisco Chronicle. Wapner expressed holding great resentment and bitterness at the show's producers for his finding out this way, and additional resentment over being let go when, according to him, the show was still doing well. However, although the show had a good run ratings-wise, the ratings had dropped to an all-time low at around the time The People's Court was canceled.
Wapner stated that he was told years later that the producers did not want to hurt his feelings, but that it was exactly what they did. He also stated that he was not notified when the producers decided to revamp the series and that he held no opinions on The People's Court judges who succeeded him as he never watched the program. He did, however, note that the two People's Court judges who succeeded him, Ed Koch and Jerry Sheindlin, only lasted no more than two seasons each, whereas he lasted the original series' entire 12 seasons. He also emphasized that judges need to be respectful of litigants. In 2009, he returned to The People's Court during the Marilyn Milian era to preside over a case in honor of his 90th birthday.
Revival (1997–2023) After the O. J. Simpson murder trial revived interest in court shows, and Judge Judy became very successful, on , a revival of The People's Court debuted in first-run syndication. The series as a whole reached its 38th season in September 2022, with its 26th and final season in its production cycle. The 1997–2023 reincarnation has vastly outlasted the program's original version, which ran 12 seasons. The show's second incarnation was headed by three judges in all.
The new The People's Court expanded from the original version's 30-minute length to a 60-minute broadcast where former New York Newscaster Carol Martin (1997–98) of WCBS-TV hosted from a studio. Harvey Levin (1997–2023) was also added to the show cast in a role that was added to reflect the court show's title People's Court: returning from breaks, Levin acting as a field reporter, is shown at an external public place taking questions and opinions from people about the case, and then, returning to the studio at the end of the show for a wrap-up. Curt Chaplin (1997–2023) replaced Jack Harrell as the show's announcer and appeared on camera as the court reporter with the addition of a litigant-final-thoughts interviewer, known for snippily interviewing the program's litigants following the conclusion of each case. Beginning with the 2016-17 season, Doug Llewelyn from the first incarnation of The People's Court took over this litigant interviewing role. Chaplin, however, maintained his voice-over role in the series. In this role, Chaplin narrated the court show in a manner that poked fun at the cases with melodramatic and exaggerated vocal expressions and verbiage.
Ed Koch era (1997–99)