In almost any other state, such a barrage of lawsuits against a family in desperate financial straits would be remarkable. Not in Nebraska. There, debt collectors frequently sue over medical debts as small as $60 and a simple missed doctor’s bill can quickly land you in court.

Filing suit is one of the most aggressive ways to collect debt, but no one tracks how frequently it happens or to whom. An examination of Nebraska’s courts, however, shows that where debtors live can have an enormous, and unexpected, impact on the quantity and types of lawsuits.

Nebraska’s flood of suits isn’t merely a reflection of residents’ inability to pay their bills. About 79,000 debt-collection lawsuits were filed in Nebraska courts in 2013 alone, according to a ProPublica analysis. In New Mexico, a state with a population, like Nebraska’s, of around two million, about 30,000 suits were filed. Yet by virtually any measure, households in Nebraska are significantly better off than those in New Mexico: Income is higher. Poverty is lower. And fewer families fall behind on their bills.

The reason for the difference is simple. Suing someone in Nebraska is cheaper and easier.

The cost to file a lawsuit in Nebraska is $45. In New Mexico, where suits are filed at about one-third the rate as in Nebraska, the fee for smaller debts starts at $77.

Nebraska lawmakers, of course, didn’t set out to turn the Cornhusker State into the Lawsuit State. Instead, it appears no one understood the consequences of having cheap court fees: Suing became an irresistible bargain for debt collectors. It’s a deal collectors have fought to keep, opposing even the slightest increase.

For debtors, unaffordable debts turn into unaffordable garnishments, destroying already tight budgets and sending them into a loop. “It’s just been a vicious cycle,” said Tanya Glasgow, a single mother in Lincoln, Nebraska who’s been sued several times. “It’s been horrible.”

“I resent the stereotype that these are not hard-working people,” said Katherine Owen, managing attorney in Legal Aid of Nebraska’s Omaha office. “Truly the majority of them simply cannot afford it. That’s it.”

Lawsuits over medical debts are, of course, filed in other states, usually by hospitals. What makes Nebraska unusual is that almost all the suits are brought by locally owned collection agencies that pursue debts on behalf of medical providers. Although ProPublica found collection agencies filing suits in large numbers in other states, particularly Indiana and Washington, none could match the sheer volume in Nebraska.

It’s a difference that came as a surprise to researchers, consumer advocates, and collection professionals both in and outside of Nebraska.

“There’s very little information, period,” on the number of collection lawsuits in different states, said April Kuehnhoff, an attorney with the National Consumer Law Center. Policymakers in Nebraska and other states should pay attention, she said. “Being sued on a debt has very serious negative consequences for consumers.”