Civil Litigants Face a Round of Fee Hikes

In a last-minute bid to keep courthouses open, state lawmakers, with the blessing of lawyers and court officials, closed a $250-million gap in the budget for the court system with $150 million worth of new and increased fees on civil lawsuits.

Some lawyers believe the fees, which took effect Aug. 17, could be devastating for low-income litigants, forcing them to settle disputes outside the public court system.

The most controversial is the new $500 fee for complex cases.

When it passed, plaintiffs’ lawyers and court staff members believed it would be assessed on a per case basis. Instead, the law requires that each litigant in a case pay the fee, even those with thousands of plaintiffs.

Beverly Hills attorney Raymond P. Boucher, for example, will have to pay $150,000 to file complaints against the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles on behalf of more than 200 alleged victims of childhood sexual abuse by priests.

The law has created such a stir that William C. Vickrey, administrative director of the state courts, directed local court officials to collect just one fee per case until lawmakers in Sacramento could review the effects of their action.

“The intent of the Senate Budget Committee, I think, was to have this apply just like a filing fee” to all plaintiffs as a group, Vickrey said.

The higher fees are expected to replace the $150 million in state general funds removed from the court’s $2.5-billion budget.

The judicial branch also was forced to squeeze $100 million from its operational costs this fiscal year and may suffer more cuts if fee collections are lower than expected.

One of the biggest changes in the law creates a new sliding scale for probate fees that begins at $185 for estates worth less than $250,000 and exceeds $3,500 for those valued as high as $3.5 million. The old fee was $185 per case.

Lawmakers added a $100 fee for each time a trial is delayed by the parties. And they hiked the cost of filing limited-jurisdiction cases of $10,000 to $25,000.

Besides the filing fees, civil litigants also will be hit with a $20 courthouse security fee, the 10% surcharge enacted last year and higher court reporter costs.

The security fee applies to all civil filings except small claims and all criminal convictions, but not parking violations.

Criminal fines were raised 20% last year.

Increasing the court’s reliance on fees reignites a long-standing debate over government funding of the judicial branch.

Civil filing fees are “appropriate and should reflect part of the cost of administering the judicial system,” Vickrey said.

“But they should not be looked to as the sole means of funding the court system. It is not the responsibility of the civil justice system to support the criminal justice system.”

But the choices were slim this year, Vickrey said. Court officials had to either close courtrooms or raise civil fees.

“It illustrates how fragile and how vulnerable courts are in a time of severe financial crisis,” he said.

Vickrey plans to gather a group of bar leaders and other interested parties in the coming weeks to explore long-term options for financing the courts.

Meanwhile, the added costs alone could make it virtually impossible for some litigants to access the public court system.

“There is no question that, unfortunately, there will be a significant number of poor people who won’t have access to the courts,” said Boucher, a vice president of Consumer Attorneys of California.

Many plaintiffs’ lawyers -- who pay all the litigation costs upfront for their clients in return for 40% of any award plus reimbursement of their costs -- will have to redo their risk-benefits analyses before taking on clients in more costly complex cases.

“The smaller legitimate cases are going to go by the wayside,” Boucher predicted.

Because the fees were part of a last-minute budget deal, bar leaders had little time to weigh in before they were approved. Many affected groups, such as probate lawyers and those representing the poor, have not yet determined the impact on their clients.

Kenneth W. Babcock, who runs the Santa Ana-based Public Law Center, is most concerned about the effect of the $100 continuance fee on people who represent themselves and delay trial to try to work out an amicable resolution in family law disputes.

“For low-income litigants ... it can be significant, particularly if there are multiple continuances,” he said.

Members of the State Bar’s trusts and estates section have not yet taken a position on the new probate fee structure.

But its chairman, Marshal A. Oldman, was skeptical. “To me, it looks like a tax on probate,” he said.

“I don’t know if it’s fair or unfair,” Oldman said. “I think it’s not necessarily based on the amount of work” the court must do on a particular estate.

“Why not just have a flat fee that applies to all estates?” he asked.

In the meantime, trial lawyers and court officials are trying to determine how to make up the $18 million that would be lost if the complex case fees are assessed per side, and not per litigant.

One option is to add another surcharge on all civil filings, not just the complex ones, for at least a year while another funding source is sought, said Bruce M. Brusavich, president of Consumer Attorneys of California.

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New court costs

Superior Court fee hikes:

*--* Former fee New fee Complex case $0 $500* Probate $185 $185-$3,500 Filing fee (claims of $10,000 or more) $90 $185 Continuance $0 $100 Security surcharge $0 $20 Small claims (frequent filers, 12 claims in $35 $60 12 months) Appeal to Court of Appeal $265 $655 Petition for hearing before Supreme Court $200 $590

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*Per litigant