Two legal aid groups have petitioned the California Supreme Court to require that litigants in several types of civil lawsuits have access to verbatim electronic recordings of court proceedings whenever court reporters are unavailable.
The Family Violence Appellate Project and Bay Area Legal Aid filed their petition to the high court on Dec. 4, arguing that low-income plaintiffs cannot afford to hire private court recorders when state-employed court recorders can’t be scheduled. This leads to litigants being denied their equal protection and due-process guarantees in the California Constitution, according to the lawsuit.
Complicating the picture is that the state’s Government Code Section 69957 bars courts from employing electronic voice recordings in unlimited civil, family law and probate cases, according to the complaint.
“Given the widespread unavailability of court reporters – which Section 69957 does not account for – the statute is preventing courts from providing any verbatim recording in over a million civil proceedings every year,” the lawsuit says.
The petition asks the state Supreme Court to rule that this section of the law can’t legally be employed by superior courts in the state when court reporters are not available.
“There is an easy answer to this problem,” the lawsuit states. “Electronic recording is routinely used in federal and state courts across the country. Most of the respondents’ courtrooms are equipped to use it.”
Serving as counsel for the petitioners are Covington & Burling LLP and Community Legal Aid SoCal. The respondents are the superior courts in Los Angeles, San Diego, Santa Clara and Contra Costa counties.
Thao Weldy, development director for the Family Violence Appellate Project (FVAP), said there has been no formal opposition to the lawsuit by any groups, including the California Court Reporters Association.
“I'd like to emphasize that we love our court reporters,” Weldy told the Southern California Record in an email. “In fact FVAP has frequently lobbied the state Legislature to provide more funding for court reporters and to increase the amount court reporters receive for producing transcripts. This case will not take away the jobs of any court reporters.”
Lawmakers have provided $30 million in each of the past three years to help recruit and retain court reporters, and courts are working to deal with the shortage, she said.
“The purpose of this case is simply to ensure that, when a court reporter is not available, low-income people will still receive equal access to a verbatim record of their case proceedings,” Weldy said.
The court reporter shortage, however, has now reached a tipping point, according to the FVAP, and the average daily cost to obtain a private court reporter has reached $3,300.
Lower-income litigants who cannot afford such costs are entitled to have their court proceedings recorded at no cost through electronic means if a state court reporter is not available, according to the FVAP.
“Thousands of litigants in family law and probate cases leave courtrooms every day without a verbatim record of what transpired,” Jennafer Wagner, FVAP’s director of programs, said in a prepared statement. “The result is often devastating for low-income litigants, including survivors of domestic violence who rely on courts for critical orders to protect them and their families, including restraining orders, child custody and visitation orders, spousal and child support orders, orders declaring debt was caused by domestic abuse, and many others.”
Not having a verbatim record of proceedings also affects the parties’ ability to file appeals or obtain accurate court documentation, Wagner said.