Virtually all of the cases filed were in districts along the Wasatch Front, not in rural areas. The numbers of cases include Provo district, 9,620; Ogden, 5,615; Salt Lake City, 3,909; West Jordan, 3,344; Layton, 2,198; Orem, 1,168; Spanish Fork, 399; Tooele, 273; and American Fork, 236.

The number of cases grew rapidly in those three years, up 75 percent from 6,535 in 2005 to 11,403 in 2007. It grew even faster in some courts. In West Jordan, the number of payday lender cases grew nearly ninefold. In Provo, they grew by 140 percent.

Payday lender cases are accounting for a higher and higher percentage of all small claims cases. They accounted for 42 percent of all small claims cases in those Wasatch Front courts in 2005; 51 percent in 2006; and 58 percent in 2007.

In Provo, 84 percent of all small claims cases last year were filed by payday lenders (and it averaged 81 percent over the three years).

"That means we have three full-time clerks who essentially do nothing but handle payday loan cases," said Paul Vance, trial court executive for the 4th District Court.

He said the situation is not hurting regular, full-time judges because they do not handle small claims cases; those cases instead are handled by unpaid attorneys who volunteer as a service to act as small claims judges, where cases are usually heard at night.

Why are so many cases filed in Provo? It is where Check City — the most active litigant among payday lenders — is based. It filed 9,161 cases over the past three years, about a third of all cases by payday lenders.

Vance notes that people taking out payday loans with Check City "sign a paper agreeing that if the loan goes to default, they will have it adjudicated in 4th District Court. So we get cases from all over the state, as far away as St. George."

He adds that maybe because of that, "We don't have maybe even 10 percent of the defendants appear," because of the distance many would have to travel. So he said Check City or other payday lenders "usually receive a default decision."

Peterson, the U. law professor, says such agreements mean loan recipients may "have to travel a long way and find lodging, so even showing up in court could be more expensive than their original loan. People who take out these loans frequently are on the verge of falling into poverty, so traveling across the city or state is much less likely for them."

So, he said, payday lenders are more likely to get default rulings in their favor.

Peterson said considering all the small claims cases coming from payday lenders, "Maybe at this point we should change the name of small claims court to payday-lenders-get-whatever-they-want court."