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AB-1758 Court records: fees.(2023-2024)

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Date Published: 07/13/2023 09:00 PM
AB1758:v98#DOCUMENT

Amended  IN  Senate  July 13, 2023

CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE— 2023–2024 REGULAR SESSION

Assembly Bill
No. 1758

Introduced by Committee on Judiciary (Assembly Members Maienschein (Chair), Connolly, Dixon, Haney, Kalra, Pacheco, Papan, Reyes, and Robert Rivas) and Reyes)

March 02, 2023

An act to add Section 68511.3 to the Government Code, relating to courts.


LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST


AB 1758, as amended, Committee on Judiciary. Court records: fees.
Existing law requires the Judicial Council to adopt rules to establish standards and guidelines for the creation, maintenance, reproduction, and preservation of court records, to ensure the accuracy and preserve the integrity of the records, and ensure that the public can access and reproduce the records. Existing rules of court require that all records be made reasonably available to the public except those that are sealed by court order or made confidential by law.
This bill would require a court to make public court records that are maintained in an electronic format available to the public for inspection and copying at a courthouse during hours when the courthouse is open to the public. The bill bill, commencing January 1, 2025, would require a court to provide to the public remote access to all public court records about in civil cases, except as specified, including registers of actions, calendars, and indexes, that are maintained by the court in an electronic format, as specified. The bill would prohibit a court that provides the public with remote access to these records from charging a fee to search for, download, or copy public court records. The bill would authorize those records, except that a court would be authorized to charge a fee to a commercial user user, as defined, for viewing, searching, duplicating, downloading, or printing public court records in an electronic format. The bill would require the Judicial Council, by January 1, 2026, to develop a rule of court establishing authorize the Judicial Council to adopt statewide commercial user fees or a process for courts to use in developing commercial user fees.
Vote: MAJORITY   Appropriation: NO   Fiscal Committee: YES   Local Program: NO  

The people of the State of California do enact as follows:


SECTION 1.

 Section 68511.3 is added to the Government Code, to read:
68511.3.

(a)Unless otherwise prohibited by law, a court shall make public court records that are maintained in an electronic format available to the public, in either electronic or paper form, for inspection and copying at a courthouse during hours when the courthouse is open to the public.

(b)

68511.3.
 (a) (1) Except as provided in paragraph (2), a court shall provide to the public remote access to all public court records about in civil cases, including registers of actions as defined in Section 69845, calendars, and indexes, indexes as defined in Section 69842, that are maintained by the court in an electronic format. A court may provide the public with remote access to the records from a location other than a public terminal at the courthouse by means that may include, but are not limited to, an internet website maintained by the court, or a third party on behalf of the court.
(2) A court is not required to provide the public with remote access to the records described in paragraph (1) in either of the following circumstances:
(A) It is not reasonably feasible for the court to make the records available by remote means provide the public with remote access because the court lacks either the resources or the technical capacity to do so.
(B) The record is about one of the types of civil cases listed in the California Rules of Court as a type of civil case to which a court may not provide remote access. in a civil case that may only be accessed at a courthouse pursuant to the California Rules of Court.

(c)

(b) Except as provided in subdivision (d), (c), a court that provides the public with remote access to the records described in paragraph (1) of subdivision (b) (a) shall not charge a fee to search for, download, or copy public court such records.

(d)

(c) (1) Notwithstanding subdivision (c), (b), a court may charge a fee to a commercial user for viewing, searching, duplicating, downloading, or printing public court records in an electronic format. The Judicial Council shall, by January 1, 2026, develop a rule of court establishing format consistent with a rule of court that the Judicial Council may adopt in order to establish statewide commercial user fees or a process for courts to use in developing commercial user fees.

(e) As used in this section:

(1)(A)“Commercial user” means a person or entity, or any person acting on behalf of an entity, that has viewed, downloaded, or printed at least 100 individual electronic court records during a 12-month period for commercial purposes.

(B)None

(2) No person who attests that they are one of the following shall be considered to be a “commercial user:”

(i)An entity formally organized as a nonprofit corporation, including, but not limited to, a nonprofit organization providing legal services to the persons whose records are obtained.

(ii)An attorney or law firm that obtains a record about a client.

(A) An employee of an educational institution or governmental entity seeking records for the official use of the institution or entity.
(B) An attorney representing a client on a pro bono basis or employed by a legal services organization, or a person working in the same law firm or legal services organization seeking a record in a client’s case pursuant to terms and requirements specified in the California Rules of Court.

(iii)

(C) A person who attests that the records are needed for a scholarly, journalistic, political, or government use. is a representative of the news media, meaning one who regularly gathers, prepares, collects, photographs, records, writes, edits, reports, or publishes news or information that concerns local, national, or international events or other matters of public interest for dissemination to the public for a substantial portion of the person’s livelihood or for substantial financial gain.
(d) As used in this section:

(2)

(1) “Court record” has the same meaning as in subdivision (a) of Section 68151. 68151, excluding any reporter’s transcript for which the reporter is entitled to receive a fee for any copy.

(3)

(2) “Public court record” means a court record that is not sealed by court order, made exempt from remote public access under the California Rules of Court, or otherwise confidential by law.
(3) “Legal services organization” means a nonprofit entity in good standing in California and the state in which it is incorporated, if other than California, that provides as its primary purpose and function legal services in civil matters to indigent and disenfranchised persons.
(e) This section shall become operative on January 1, 2025.