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Sunday, August 14, 2005

Ind. Courts - Court costs soar in 2005

The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette has a pair of stories today by reporters Niki Kelly and Sara Eaton on soaring court costs in Indiana.

The first story is headlined "Going to court can be costly: Some say increases ‘haphazard,’ but bigger budget always requested." A few quotes from the lengthy article:

INDIANAPOLIS – Every year, some segment of the judicial or law enforcement system comes to the Statehouse pleading for additional funding. But rather than using traditional tax dollars already shelled out by working Hoosiers, legislators tack fee after fee onto the system, creating a morass of court costs. * * *

“Somewhere along the line the court costs will be a barrier to ordinary people obtaining relief. I don’t know if we are there yet,” said Rep. Ralph Foley, R-Martinsville, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

“It’s not my favorite way of dealing with funding anything, but everyone wants extra money to do the assignment of today. Where does that extra money come from? Those that use the system.”

It’s hard to argue that logic. But in this litigious era it seems almost impossible that any citizen could go through life without having some contact in the judicial system: divorce; settling an estate; an adoption; getting a speeding ticket; a protective order; or suing a landlord.

“In the course of the session, I know the question was raised as to whether increased fees limit access to the courts. That was a consideration of the legislature,” said Clyde Compton, president of the Indiana State Bar Association. “One of the things that occurred as a result of that is the recommended judges’ pay raise was reduced by 30 percent. The judges didn’t get everything they asked for.” * * *

Fees and costs work somewhat differently in civil and criminal courts, although usually contain three possible layers.

When a case of any kind is filed in a civil court the filer is charged a fee. The majority of that fee consists of a base $100 but over the years legislators have added fees. For instance, to initiate divorce proceedings costs $130. The additional $30 encompasses a second layer of fees: a document storage fee, an automated record keeping fee, a public defense administration fee, a judicial insurance adjustment fee, a judicial salaries fee and a court administration fee.

And the cost could go even higher depending on a third layer of fees that are discretionary to each county or judge, such as a $20 alternative dispute resolution fee collected in Allen County that kicks the cost to $150.

On the criminal side, the costs are paid only after conviction. The base criminal costs are $120 but a second layer of mandatory fees makes it $156 for felonies and misdemeanors and $106 for infractions and ordinance violations.

There are about a dozen other possible fees that can be added by a judge in specific cases, such as a child abuse prevention fee, domestic violence prevention and treatment fee, a safe schools fee and highway work zone fee.

“There will come a time when someone will look at this laundry list of court fees and see that we have divided it into so many little cubby holes that just to do the accounting is a nightmare,” Rep. Foley said. “No wonder the court clerks need more money.”

Foley and others point out that Indiana’s filing fees are a small percentage of the cost of a whole case and give access to the courts for the life of a case. In other states, people must pay an initial filing fee and a small fee every time they file a document in a case.

The second story is headlined "State’s $70 small-claims fee could deter filing." Some quotes:
INDIANAPOLIS – The most dramatic increase in court fees, and the one that seems to ring an alarm bell, is in the small-claims division.

Known as a citizens’ court, this is where average Hoosiers come to settle smaller monetary disputes without an attorney.

In 2000, the cost to file a small-claims case was just $35, which can be recouped if a person wins the case.

But as of July, that filing fee has doubled to $70 and is among the highest in the nation, according to Tom Gordon, senior counsel for HALT, a consumer advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., that focuses on the consumption of legal services.

Most small-claims filing fees across the country are between $30 and $50 Gordon said. A few that were higher than Indiana’s $70 – as of a 2004 study done by the group – were Wisconsin, Illinois and Louisiana at $100. Illinois and several other states have an escalating fee depending on how much money people are seeking.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on August 14, 2005 08:10 AM
Posted to Indiana Courts