S.B. 270 State Court Amendments: transcript

Okay. Thank you, chair. So the, the intent of this is, and, and I I don't have all the exact numbers, so, uh, maybe Michael Drexel can correct, correct me, but about 70% of all civil filings in the state of Utah are related to debt collection or evictions. And, and, uh, roughly half of those are filed in Salt Lake County. Because of that, we've been able to see some models where there's some efficiencies in having one judge that handles most of the preliminary stuff of these cases. And that in that in fact, actually resolves almost all of the cases. And because so many of those are filed in Salt Lake County, we've been able to see that there are some pro bono services that come in and can help with representation of defendants. There are mediation services that come, uh, come in and help with those defendants. And there's a thought that if where, because of COVID, most of this stuff is done online now. And so it's become very efficient to get that help and those resources to these pro largely pro se defendants to deal with this stuff. With it being online, the thought was maybe we could consolidate all these cases statewide into a single court, not actually creating a new court, but a new court or a new system where one or two judges could handle all of these cases and help all of these pro se defendants and help find efficiencies and help, help with resources, access to justice. I think there would be some, uh, efficiencies for the judiciary as well. And so that's the intent of this case. In talking or of, of this bill in talking to the courts, I think there are some tweaks that need to be made to this bill and we intend to do that, including delaying the implementation poss We would, obviously this bill will change jurisdiction and venue for these types of cases. The thought is to mo these cases would still be filed in the district where they originate, uh, but they would get funneled to a central location dealt with in the event that you actually have to go to, uh, a trial or some sort of extensive evident evidentiary type hearing, then it would cut, get funneled back out to the appropriate jurisdiction. So that's not a burden on, on the defendants and having to travel to Salt Lake if they're in Vernal or St. George or whatever. Um, and then there was some additional thought about maybe having this be commissioners as opposed to to judges. So right now there's not, not new judges proposing this bill, but we might do commissioners, add some judicial assistance and clerks to handle the efficiencies here. And what this would also do would free up all of these cases that are, that are on judges' dockets around the state and, and lighten their burden a little bit as well. So that is the intent of the bill. There are still some logistics to work out here and I intend to continue to work on that. Alright, thank you. I'm gonna go

Yes. Uh, chair, I have a question if I may. Yes,

you. Um, I see there is no fiscal note. I'm assuming that this will cost, is there an estimate of what this would cost?

That that is what, sorry, chair. Are We good? Yeah, please. Okay. That's, that's what we're working on. If we change this to floating district court judges and move it to primarily commissioners, it will drastically reduce the cost. But there's still gonna be significant. Well, those, there will still be ongoing costs. I don't, I don't even know if I can guess, but, you know, a million, 2 million maybe. So I maybe more, I don't know, Michael.

I just want to say Senator. Um, you know, I think as most people know, a portion of my practice is family law. And right now I used to always wait two months for a hearing before commissioner. Now it's often three or four months. And so, um, I am, I'm hesitant to, um, I'll vote for your bill today, but I'm hesitant to support anything that's gonna put more workload on the commissioners. One of the yet unmet needs, uh, greatest needs in the district court, according to the information we were provided from the, um, chief Justice and others, is that we need another commissioner in the Salt Lake area. Salt Lake. Um, I do have a, a appropriation request in RFA for that. And I don't know that it'll be funded. I don't know that it won't be funded, but I just want to be, I I just want you to know if we're gonna pile work on them, it's already an overloaded system, just so you know.

And, and to that, the, the thought would be that this would be one or two additional commissioners. Okay. Okay. So I like that. I don't Wanna step on your commissioner request, but maybe there's

No, you can step on my request all you want. If we can get more commissioners, that's gonna help.

Yeah. Um, first of all, I, I appreciate the bill. I, um, you know, the, a lot of the access to Justice initiatives are trying, really what they're trying to get at is how do we deal with debt collection issues since that's where the vast majority of people are, are dealing with. I mean, couldn't we just do a sandbox and solve this? I I would argue that, uh, I'm just having fun with the courts. Um, we, But, but, but lemme address that seriously though, like Salt Lake, actually maybe 10 years. I don't know how, how long has Judge K been off the bench, but I would argue Judge K up in the second district was kind of the pilot program for this. And it worked very efficiently and, and it was great. And then, uh, Salt Lake has kind of been doing this with Judge Parker now with Judge Mont and Judge Petit. And so a lot of this has already kind of a little bit in practice and this would, this would help with that. So, and the part of the reason why I like it is so much of this area of practice, it's terrifying to those that are involved for the first time. But you've got a, it's really administrative more than you're really measuring stuff. Uh, and and rarely are you actually getting to a weighing of evidence and even a taking of any substantially, you know, ev substantial evidentiary issues. You know, you may need some documents and, and that kind of thing. And so taking this off of the plate of our district court judges, frankly, resolving these matters are important, but rarely is it within, you know, what we really want judges to be doing, which is exercising their discretion in wise manners and weighing the evidence and doing everything that way. And so I really like that this, and then it, it makes it so much easier for the groups that are trying to help those that are unrepresented, you know, and the tenants and, and everyone to provide those pro bono services. It gives them an outlet or a, a forum to do it. I, I think it's a really innovative idea and I see, you know, why you did it, you know, by statute rather than, you know, the courts are bound 'cause they can't create a new court and they're bound to do it all county by county. So by doing this legislatively, you know, we, it it really shows, you know, that the interdependency of the bodies can work together to create a better system. And so I I I appreciate the approach. Thank you. Thanks. And Chair, just, just to be clear too, like what I described is probably quite a bit different than what's in the bill right now. Um, we, rather than creating a new court by statute, we do have to change venue and jurisdiction. But, but establishing this at the district court level with commissioners will be substantially different than cr actually creating a court. So, yeah.

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair and committee members. My name's Michael Drexel. I'm the assistant state court administrator. I just, I wanted to comment today to say how much I appreciate Senator Cole more careful work on this. He's convened a group of stakeholders that represents all sides and all views of how these cases ought to best be handled. And he's involved the judiciary, uh, he's involved, uh, housing folks, he's involved, uh, landlord attorneys, he's involved nonprofits. It's been really great to see. And then he is taken time to talk to me and hear the judiciary's concerns about this. I can tell you he doesn't need me to vouch for him, but he's trying to get this right and he's been really open to feedback and wants to see a system that will yield benefits for everyone involved. And I get the sense that we can get to a place where this will be really great. So, uh, we're, it's not there yet as he acknowledged, but we're working on it carefully and and grateful to him. So Thank you. Thank you very

I'm a newcomer. Thank you. Steve Waldrop, advisor for the governor on housing. I appreciate the efforts by a good Senator Brammer here to make things more clear, more direct. Um, when, when I think about landlord tenant issues, I always think about it in, I always think about it in terms of balance and, and kind of fairness and presumption. And I think this helps to provide greater access. Access is, is one of the things in fairness that, that can help. Um, and, and creating certainty around that access, as you mentioned, uh, I think was Senator Brammer. Um, having access across the state and giving the, um, groups that are helping tenants. We've done a great job of funding landlord tenant resolution, uh, conflict resolution, which I think we need to continue. And this is a, a continued step in that direction. So I'm grateful for the bill. We're, uh, in support. I think there's a few tweaks that are gonna come with it, but we're very supportive of the concept. Thank you.

Uh, my name is Sean Janke. I'm in Weber County in the Ogden area. Um, I actually don't represent any certain, uh, body. Uh, I'm here to speak for myself. I'm actually real estate broker of a large brokerage as well as own and operate a handful of rentals. And I love this idea. I think it would streamline it. We'd have better opportunity for people to be heard and someone that would actually understand and be more of an expert in this realm. So I, I am all for this bill, and I appreciate Colin Moore for running this. Thank you.

Stewart, uh, representing myself from American Fork. Um, uh, I do have some friends who recently went through an eviction, uh, process. And, um, I think it's good when we, when we look at these kinds of things, when, when the argument is caseload and efficiency, to take a step back and notice what are the aspects of general welfare? What are the needs that are not being met, uh, that create that kind of pressure. So, um, that's, that's just a, a guess more broad and general consideration. But, um, one of my concerns specifically with this bill is, um, that it appears to, uh, expand the pretrial adjudication process as one of the pressure relief valves for, um, trying to manage the caseload. And there's, there's a very particular trend, um, in this country and in, in our state to basically at all costs avoid confrontation with a jury. Uh, any question, um, because that's the primary feedback mechanism for, uh, the government to get input from the people as to what's working and what's not and what's, what's, what's fair and what's not. Um, there's a really great book that I re really recommend to everybody read. It's called The Missing American Jury by Suji Thomas, who's a law professor at the University of Illinois. And in it, she documents the process of including these pretrial diversions and other, um, mechanisms that are used to avoid confrontation with a jury. And the actual effect of that though is that the pressure increases because the number of, uh, frivolous laws on the books increases effectively without limit and the number of causes for adjudication rises. So if we wanted to investigate the underlying cause of the pressure on the judicial system, I would recommend that rather than, uh, creating new systems or additional diversion mechanisms. Thank you.

Um, I, I mean by, by having your own right. Se separate court venue for this and having the, uh, the court being the trier of fact.

Right? I i, i I would take issue with that. I would take, I I I I'm concerned about expansion of summary judgment by establishing a new venue. Right. And, and by diverting the, the cases to that.

Yeah, I'll make the motion that, uh, understanding there's a lot of work to do here still that we favorably recommend Senate Bill two 70.

Alright, thank you. Chair and committee. So the Utah Bar Foundation has been doing a study on, uh, high volume type civil cases, meaning eviction and collection cases. And have, have, uh, been working with practitioners, have been working with, uh, advocates for, uh, a lot of the pro se litigants, which is often who, who is in these types of court hearings and has made recommendations or, or at least based on their study, has recommended that what we could do is consolidate a lot of these cases. And a lot of this is made possible due to COVID. And now that a lot of these cases are online, uh, we could, we could consolidate all these cases, which represent somewhere in the neighborhood of 70% of all civil filings. And so, uh, they could be handled at, at, at a state court level, which would allow for practitioners, um, ease of use. Uh, would, would hopefully create some efficiencies within the court systems, but would also provide a lot of access to justice issues across the state where defendants, wherever they are, could appear remotely for the most part and would have access to mediators, would have access to pro bono counsel. Uh, the third district court here in Salt Lake pretty much already does this, uh, a while ago in the second district court. We had a judge that, that did this very similarly before COVID. And we've seen a lot of efficiencies. And so all this bill does is, is it allows the court to set up a division under the district court to have a couple commissioners and a bunch of judicial assistance manage the centralized location when and if, uh, more robust evidentiary hearing is needed or a trial, then it would go back out to the appropriate district so that the defendants are not burdened by, you know, having to travel. They, they still get, they still get the benefit of going to their local district court for a trial. And that's, that's essentially the bill.

So lemme just see if I understand. We're using existing district court judges. This is just merely a division is all it, is. It, it would kind of, it would still be filed in the district court as they are, but if they're filed as an eviction or what, you know, what we consider a debt collection case right now, it would allow the courts to consolidate those cases into, uh, this division of the district courts. The courts would then hire potentially two commissioners that would handle the vast majority of these. Now a lot of these still have to go out for signing for judges, so it would, it would likely go back out to the assigned judge. But, but a lot of the case handling, which is the, the more burdensome, I, I shouldn't say burdensome, the time consuming part of this case would be consolidated amongst these commissioners and judicial assistance. Okay.

Thank you Madam Chair Committee members. My name's Michael Drexel. I'm the Assistant state court administrator. It's a pleasure to be with you today. Uh, it's been good to work with Senator Cullimore on this. Uh, this version of the bill is something that I think we can really, uh, make good things happen with. I will tell you that it's a vast quantity of work. Senator Comore could tell you even better, it's, uh, 70 to 80,000 debt collection cases a year and seven to 8,000 eviction cases a year that would be potentially in this pool of getting centralized. Now, many of those unfortunately do result in default judgments because people don't appear. And one of the things that this team of, uh, of commissioners and jas could do is help process through all of that kind of front end work uniformly. And then for those who do show up and answer, then we can help hopefully connect them with some, uh, pro bono services and other things. Uh, ultimately there will need to be some judicial involvement in this because commissioners can't, uh, fully resolve or adjudicate a case with final judgment without a counter signature from a judge. And there will be cases that have to go for evidentiary hearing. We'll be monitoring how this, uh, will stack up workload wise to make sure that it's actually serving a benefit to the people and to the court system and to the parties. Um, and we may be back with future requests if there's a need for, uh, more robust, uh, resources, but right now we're just, uh, pleased to be working with Senator Comore.

Hi, my name is Zoe Newman and I am with the Utah Housing Coalition. And I cannot express how excited we are about this bill. We are in support of this bill because of the ex, it expands access to mediation services, um, legal services for folks who are facing eviction. So not only does this help the tenants, but also landlords alike come to a conclusion where we believe is like the best case scenario. And so when people have access to these mediation services and legal services, it is, um, it is amazing how different a court room kind of looks like and those conversations look like. So I wanna thank the senator and I wanna thank everybody who's been involved in these conversations because we believe this is gonna lead to more, um, tenant stability and keeping landlords whole.

Thank you Madam Chair. Um, I like to make a motion that we favorably recommend SB two 71st sub to the House four. All right. The motion is to favorably recommend the first substitute of Senate Bill two 70.

Yes. So I, I deal, uh, I do quite a bit of debt collection type cases, um, for several clients. And one of my biggest frustrations is that, um, the, the rules state what the process is and what's required, but individual judicial assistance will have their own custom requirements, which makes it really hard for these cookie cutter type default cases. And so it takes more time and effort, um, and just drags out the process. Um, now it would be fine if they had extra requirements and they all shared those extra requirements because then you can just make a system based off of that. Um, and eviction court cases are very similar, where a lot of them go through a system and some, sometimes there's additional requirements or things that a judge may like here and there. So I love the idea of consolidating these cases and being able to have like a uniform process. I think that's gonna be great for the court system. It's gonna be great for the, the plaintiff and the defendants in these cases. So I'm very supportive of what this good sponsor's been doing. Alright, Thank you to the sponsor.

Jennifer. Representative Abbott. Yes. Acton? Yes. Ox here. Aye. Gracious Lube? Yes. Manga? Yes. Millard? Yes. Thompson? Yes. Clancy? Yes. Libe? Yes.

Thank you very much. Alright.

for what is typically deemed about 70% of all civil filings are somewhat routine in that their eviction and collections and what we have in Salt Lake works really well. And we previously had it in Davis County where one, one judge, or one or two judges can handle a lot of these cases, uh, as they are somewhat routine. But what that also does is it consolidates the dockets and allows defendants in these cases who are more often than not pro se, get resources to help them through these cases. And so you have pro bono attorneys, you have legal aid, you've got community action that comes to these dockets and helps, helps these people resolve the cases, which is not only beneficial to the defendants, but is beneficial to plaintiffs, is beneficial to the court system. And so this is an attempt to consolidate those for the benefit of, of everybody. And I'm working with the court right now and we'll have a substitute to really define how this is gonna work out. 'cause the, at the court's suggestion, um, the cases will all be consolidated in the third district court, but then if they get to the point that it actually needs a trial, which is a very, very small percentage of these far less than 1%, it would get sent back out, back out to the appropriate district so that they could have a trial in their home, home county. Um, the, the bill is supported by advocates, the bill is supported by plaintiff's attorneys, and I'm working with the courts on this as well. Again, hope will have a sub by any minute, but, but based on, uh, based on that, I would ask the, your support of this bill and, and we'll work on the sub.

Yeah, I, I just wanted to arise in support of the bill. This is one of the issues that the courts have been struggling with for a long, long time. And that's specifically access to justice and they've tried to solve it through other means, through sandboxes and things like that. But really this court has the chance to clean up a lot of the dockets, provide a, a separate court space that will, you know, the vast majority of the cases that are on the dockets, our debt collection cases and, uh, housing, uh, you know, landlord tenant issues. And those are not difficult cases and they usually don't go to trial like he, like senator, like the good senator said. Um, but this has the possibility of freeing up our district court judges to do what they're there to do while still really handling these in a fair and equitable way for those that are oftentimes underrepresented. And, and for that reason, I, uh, fully support this and really appreciate, uh, Senator Cullimore for bringing the bill. Thank you again.

Alright, thank you. And, and just a quick summation. The original idea from this bill was brought to me by the Utah Bar Foundation, which is a separate and distinct entity from the Utah Bar Association. But the Bar Foundation looks at these types of, um, issues and trying to find access to justice, promote access to justice. And so this came at at their behest and, and, and I believe their supportive. Um, and so with that, my motion is that we read Senate Bill two 70 for a third time.

Uh, this is, this is input from the court. This is the Housing collection court. This will help them implement the, the court easier.

Thank you. This bill allows the courts, uh, through the Judicial Council to set up a division within the district court system to allow certain cases, housing and, and debt collection cases to be consolidated at a division at, in one division in statewide. And this helps them, uh, helps them and other parties including, uh, resources for debtors and pro se litigants, uh, to address those cases in a consolidated way Statewide. When and if it comes to the necessity of a trial, then it would get farmed back out to the appropriate county.

You, Mr. President, will the sponsor yield to a question? Senator Kalimore, will you yield?

Yes. Thank you, Mr. President. Go ahead. Senator Al.

Thank Thank you, Mr. President. Um, some, some in the public have recently argued that the legislature is out of its lane to set up and establish certain courts. And, uh, I wondered if you could, could address just, just the legislature and whether or not we, we have the ability to establish certain types of courts in the, in the judicial system. As an attorney, you, you work in that space. I just wonder if you could address that.

Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to explain that the legislature is empowered via the constitution and statute to establish jurisdiction and venue and, and specific courts. I will note however, though that this bill does not do, does not establish a new court that simply allows the court system through the Judicial Council to establish a division within the district court. It's, it's hard to keep the attorneys German main to the bill. So anyway, we'll try to keep that.

My motion is that we pass first substitute Senate Bill two 70.

Thank you Mr. Speaker. I move the second substitute of Senate Bill two 70.

I would, this just makes a, a small change that, uh, in the event that there is an appellate court position, um, where there are more than one applicant that is applying, it would have the court, uh, send on five additional names from the seven that they would typically send.

Thank you Mr. Speaker. Uh, recently the Utah Bar Foundation conducted a study on high volume civil cases. And they found that, um, that, that really, those cases came down to those with evictions and debt collection cases. Now, the foundation worked with practitioners, court stakeholders and advocates, and developed a recommendation on how we could improve efficiency and access in these types of cases. Now, the, the problem we see is that these cases are often repetitive and procedural in nature. Um, they're usually handled online, um, or, or remotely. They're processed county by county creating inefficiencies and, um, inconsistencies in the way that they're, they're treated, they rarely move on to trial. Um, they're a lot of the times they come in and they just find a default judgment in these cases, but they take up a large portion of every court's types of, um, procedures in their calendars. So what this bill does is it allows the courts to cons consolidate those cases, which is about 70% of, of the high volume civil filings into a centralized division within the district court. It authorizes a, the creation of a dedicated division that's staffed by a small number of commissioners and judicial assistance to go through all of those, uh, pro, uh, procedural processes that they need to, and creates a uniform process for these high volume cases. Now what it what it does do is it allows that if there is a robust evidentiary hearing or a trial that would take place in one of these cases, then it would be assigned back to one of the district court judges in the locale where the case was filed to be able to hear those cases. Uh, it ensures that defendants are not burdened with long distance travel for contested proceedings and overall improves efficiency, access to justice, and maintains those local protections where you need a more in depth proceeding. With that, Mr. Speaker, I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise in enthusiastic support. This is a great bill. Um, this is, it is hard to hear me say that normally I'm saying no, no, no. But, uh, yes, yes, yes. On this bill. This bill started, uh, in Salt Lake County. There was a judge that consolidated these calendars. It was great for defendants because pro bono attorneys could just show up in one place and help people being evicted, helping them through that process and negotiating on their behalf with, uh, landlords. Landlords liked it because it expedited the, uh, eviction process. And it's really good for tenants, uh, because tenants have an instinct that they wanna fight for the home they're being evicted of. And the truth is that they do that. They wind up with attorney's fees and treble damages and never get back up. Uh, this allows lawyers that want to help expedite the process. It works out every, uh, better for everybody. So I encourage everyone to support this bill and I appreciate the good sponsors for bringing it forward.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Um, I, I couldn't say it better than my good colleague from Salt Lake, uh, county. Yes. Yes. Yes. Please, uh, support the bill.

Thank you Mr. Speaker. I move the second substitute of Senate Bill two 70.

I would, this just makes a, a small change that, uh, in the event that there is an appellate court position, um, where there are more than one applicant that is applying, it would have the court, uh, send on five additional names from the seven that they would typically send.

Thank you Mr. Speaker. Uh, recently the Utah Bar Foundation conducted a study on high volume civil cases. And they found that, um, that, that really, those cases came down to those with evictions and debt collection cases. Now, the foundation worked with practitioners, court stakeholders and advocates, and developed a recommendation on how we could improve efficiency and access in these types of cases. Now, the, the problem we see is that these cases are often repetitive and procedural in nature. Um, they're usually handled online, um, or, or remotely. They're processed county by county creating inefficiencies and, um, inconsistencies in the way that they're, they're treated, they rarely move on to trial. Um, they're a lot of the times they come in and they just find a default judgment in these cases, but they take up a large portion of every court's types of, um, procedures in their calendars. So what this bill does is it allows the courts to cons consolidate those cases, which is about 70% of, of the high volume civil filings into a centralized division within the district court. It authorizes a, the creation of a dedicated division that's staffed by a small number of commissioners and judicial assistance to go through all of those, uh, pro, uh, procedural processes that they need to, and creates a uniform process for these high volume cases. Now what it what it does do is it allows that if there is a robust evidentiary hearing or a trial that would take place in one of these cases, then it would be assigned back to one of the district court judges in the locale where the case was filed to be able to hear those cases. Uh, it ensures that defendants are not burdened with long distance travel for contested proceedings and overall improves efficiency, access to justice, and maintains those local protections where you need a more in depth proceeding. With that, Mr. Speaker, I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise in enthusiastic support. This is a great bill. Um, this is, it is hard to hear me say that normally I'm saying no, no, no. But, uh, yes, yes, yes. On this bill. This bill started, uh, in Salt Lake County. There was a judge that consolidated these calendars. It was great for defendants because pro bono attorneys could just show up in one place and help people being evicted, helping them through that process and negotiating on their behalf with, uh, landlords. Landlords liked it because it expedited the, uh, eviction process. And it's really good for tenants, uh, because tenants have an instinct that they wanna fight for the home they're being evicted of. And the truth is that they do that. They wind up with attorney's fees and treble damages and never get back up. Uh, this allows lawyers that want to help expedite the process. It works out every, uh, better for everybody. So I encourage everyone to support this bill and I appreciate the good sponsors for bringing it forward.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Um, I, I couldn't say it better than my good colleague from Salt Lake, uh, county. Yes. Yes. Yes. Please, uh, support the bill.

Uh, we, when we added a little bit into courts about the nominating process, when there are multiple openings in a court that would allow the nominating commissions to send more names to the governor for consideration when there are multiple, uh, open positions.