Posted: May 30, 2008
Code of Judicial Administration
CJA 01-205. Standing and ad hoc committees. Amend. Adds an attorney with experience representing parents in abuse, neglect and dependency cases to the Committee on Children and Family Law.
CJA 01-305. Board of Senior Judges. Amend. Restrict membership to active senior judges.
CJA 02-103. Open and closed meetings. Amend. Prohibits those attending a closed meeting from discussing the topic except with others attending the meeting.
CJA 03-403. Judicial branch education. Amend. Establishes the minimum requirements for an active senior judge after a break in service.
CJA 04-202.02. Records classification. Amend. Classifies as private the records in guardianship and conservatorship cases, except the order and letter of appointment. Classifies some select data elements as public or private.
CJA 04-202.09. Miscellaneous. Amend. Prohibits including non-public information in an otherwise public document. Specifies substitutes for personal identifying information.
re CJA 4-202.02(4)(L) re Guardianship and Conservatorship Cases.
1. I don’t believe there is any evidence of abuse under the current classification for G&C cases. Therefore, the change is not needed.
2. If, however, G&C cases are private, then the Court’s Docket should remain public.
3. If, however, G&C cases are private, then a prospective attorney should be able to inspect the record. Example: G&C cases are often contentious among family members, usually the children of an incapacitated parent. Sometime after the commencement of the case, sometimes 1-2 years later, an interested person, usually a child, who was not initially represented by counsel will seek legal representation. A prospective attorney may wish to inspect the record prior to accepting such representation. Under Rule 4-202.03, he/she would not be allowed to inspect the record unless and until he/she filed a Notice of Appearance. But that could inject the attorney into the case before he/she has decided to enter the case.
4. I recommend that at the very least, G&C cases that are being litigated not be made “private.” By “litigated” I mean a case that is being handled by the “assigned judge” and not the “rotating probate judge”.
5. Another way to address “private information” would be to simply make that part of the file private but not all of the pleadings/motions etc. The Probate Clerks already have a procedure for keeping a Will separate from the general file so that it doesn’t disappear. Therefore, medical reports and accountings (which represent potentially sensitive information) could likewise be kept separate from petitions, motions, memoranda, etc.
6. Generally, this rule change has imposed and will continue to impose additional costs to the family members because of the additional amount of time required while at the same time providing little or no benefit to the incapacitated person.
Currently, I believe Judgment Information Statements are considered “Judgment Documents,” which are imaged into a separate (from regular civil documents) database and exported to the web for credit-reporting agencies and title agencies etc. (who have subscribed to this service) to access.
Making the Information Statements private would create a conflict with that procedure. Information Technologies could doubtless program a solution that retains the Information Statement document type and imaging type, but removes those documents from the exporting process.
However, without the identifying information contained in the Statements, credit-reporting agencies would be reduced to reporting Judgments merely by name (which they probably do anyway, but . . .), increasing faulty credit reporting, or calling the court to obtain the last four digits of a debtor’s SSN. Title companies would also be more likely to have to call the court for this information to clear prospective buyers.
Perhaps a better solution would be to have the requirements for Judgment Information Statements changed so that only the last four digits of an SSN would ever appear in the document. Then the document wouldn’t need to be classified as private.
re proposed CJA Rule 4-202.09(9)(D)
The court has no procedure in place for a clerk to review paperwork for possible violations of this rule (should every page of every filing need to be closely read at the point of filing?) or to track “nonconforming” papers that require substitutions. Instituting such a requirement would be needlessly burdensome to the clerks.
Nor should it be the clerk’s responsibility to babysit paperwork that has been filed in violation of the rule (and that is not rejected immediately for such violation). If a clerk fails to notice a violation, there are already procedures in place for interested parties to object to non-private information being filed with the court, and to have documents containing that information made private.
re proposed CJA Rule 4-202.02(4)(H)
I would like to clarify & restate my previous comment:
The public has an interest in retaining access to the information included in the Judgment Information Statement.
Unfortunately, UCA 78B-5-201(4)(b)(iv) seems to require that a debtor’s entire SSN be included in the Judgment Information Statement.
However, I suspect that the intent of the legislature in requiring such information was that such information should be available to the public in association with the Judgment. Therefore, classification of the Information Statement should remain Public.
In practice, the court does accept Information Statements that include only the last four digits of a debtor’s SSN.