Louisiana's justice of the peace courts operate on a funding model that would be rejected as implausible fiction in most democracies: the judges are paid directly from the filing fees generated by their own courts. The more cases filed, the more the justice earns. One justice in the New Orleans metro area, Chuck Cusimano II, earned over $400,000 in 2025 — mostly from eviction filing fees — exceeding the salary of Chief Justice John Roberts by more than $80,000. He is among five justices identified who made more than $220,000 in filing fee income in at least one year from 2023 to 2025. The structural incentive is not subtle. Landlords who file repeat eviction cases are the revenue source for the judge who decides those cases. Cusimano's court in Harahan processed more than 5,500 eviction cases from June 2025 to May 2026 — representing evictions filed in nearly one in five rental households in his jurisdiction, among the highest eviction filing rates tracked by Princeton University's Eviction Lab across 11 states and 43 cities. Cusimano denies any conflict of interest, noting that landlords pay fees regardless of outcome, and says he performs the same work as every other justice of the peace. The qualifications bar matches the accountability bar: justices of the peace are not required to hold law licenses. A high-school diploma and "good moral character" suffice. These courts are not courts of record, do not observe standard rules of evidence, and permit hearsay. Tenants facing eviction in one of the poorest states in the country are processed through a system with no written records and no meaningful procedural protections. A bipartisan group of Louisiana lawmakers has now called for reform following the Guardian's investigation. Republican Jerome Zeringue, a longtime member of the state house judiciary committee, called the compensation structure "unfair" and confirmed he is considering drafting legislation ahead of the April session. Democratic caucus leader Kyle Green said the legislature has "a responsibility to act" when the system creates financial incentives that call impartiality into question. Democrat Edmond Jordan, also on the judiciary committee, said he too is considering a reform bill. State senator Royce Duplessis called the income-tied-to-caseload model "a perverse incentive" and "flagrantly unethical." Democrat Mandie Landry was blunter: "It's unethical. It's unconstitutional. It's theft." Even Republican Mike Bayham acknowledged the need to address "excesses," while cautioning that reform would be "a massive undertaking." New Orleans — the only Louisiana locale without justice of the peace courts, having abolished them in 1879 — provides an existence proof that alternatives work. The system's defenders have a thin case. Cusimano's argument that fees are paid regardless of outcome ignores the structural reality: landlords who win evictions continue filing; landlords who lose stop coming back. A justice's income stream depends on a pipeline of landlord-filed cases. A Marrero-area justice has generated more than $600,000 in fee revenue since 2020. The Advocate newspaper echoed calls for reform, noting that removing the link between filing fees and income is "a common-sense move." What makes this story structurally important is not one overpaid judge — it is a statewide institutional design that converts poverty into revenue. Thousands of evictions annually flow through courts with no procedural safeguards, presided over by officials with no legal training, funded by the very parties who benefit from favorable rulings. The bipartisan alarm is real, but Louisiana's legislative history on reforming entrenched local systems suggests the undertaking will face significant resistance from incumbents who profit from the status quo.
