BILL ANALYSIS �
AB 365
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Date of Hearing: April 9, 2013
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON JUDICIARY
Bob Wieckowski, Chair
AB 365 (Mullin) - As Amended: April 3, 2013
SUBJECT : COURT REPORTING
KEY ISSUE : SHOULD IT BE CLARIFIED THAT ONLY PROCEEDINGS
TRANSCRIBED BY LICENSED OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS AND PRO TEMPORE
REPORTERS ARE PRIMA FACIE EVIDENCE OF COURT TESTIMONY AND
PROCEEDINGS?
FISCAL EFFECT : As currently in print this bill is keyed
non-fiscal.
SYNOPSIS
This bill, sponsored by the Deposition Reporters Association of
California, seeks to clarify that only proceedings that are
transcribed by licensed official court reporters and official
reporters pro tempore can be considered as prima facie evidence
of that testimony and the proceedings, pursuant to Code of Civil
Procedure Section 273. According to the author, such
clarification is desirable because the absence of a
cross-referencing statute tying the Government Code definition
of "official reporters" and "official pro tempore reporters" to
this presumption in the Code of Civil Procedure possibly leaves
open an expansive interpretation of the statute that could
enable official reporting tasks to be assigned to non-licensees.
In short, this bill essentially matches up the definition of
"official reporter" from one code to the other. The bill has no
known opposition.
SUMMARY : Clarifies that only proceedings that are transcribed
by licensed official court reporters and official reporters pro
tempore can be considered as prima facie evidence of that
testimony and the proceedings. Specifically, this bill :
1)Provides that notwithstanding any other provision of law, the
report of the official reporter, or official reporter pro
tempore, of any court, duly appointed and sworn, when
transcribed and certified as being a correct transcript of the
testimony and proceedings in the case, is prima facie evidence
of that testimony and proceedings.
AB 365
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2)Establishes within the Code of Civil Procedure that official
reporters and official reporters pro tempore shall be
appointed as provided by Section 69942 of the Government Code.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Provides that the report of the official reporter, or official
reporter pro tempore, of any court, duly appointed and sworn,
when transcribed and certified as being a correct transcript
of the testimony and proceedings in the case, is prima facie
evidence of that testimony and proceedings. (Code of Civil
Procedure Section 273(a).)
2)Provides that the report of the official reporter, or official
reporter pro tempore, of any court, duly appointed and sworn,
when prepared as a rough draft transcript, shall not be
certified and cannot be used, cited, distributed, or
transcribed as the official certified transcript of the
proceedings. (Code of Civil Procedure Section 273(b).)
3)Provides that the instant visual display of the testimony or
proceedings, or both, shall not be certified and cannot be
used, cited, distributed, or transcribed as the official
certified transcript of the proceedings. (Code of Civil
Procedure Section 273(c).)
4)Requires that every person appointed to the position of
official reporter of any court possess a license to practice
as a certified shorthand reporter from the Court Reporters
Board of California. (Government Code Section 69942.)
COMMENTS : This bill, sponsored by the Deposition Reporters
Association of California, seeks to clarify that only
proceedings that are transcribed by licensed official court
reporters and official reporters pro tempore can be considered
as prima facie evidence of that testimony and the proceedings,
pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure Section 273. In other
words, Section 273 establishes that transcripts made by official
reporters are those that qualify as prima facie evidence of not
just what occurred at a proceeding, but evidence of the
testimony and proceeding itself, and all other transcripts are
not entitled to be recognized with that evidentiary status.
AB 365
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Stated need for the bill. According to the author, CCP Section
273 is intended to limit the evidentiary status of the work
product of officials in that statute to those transcripts that
are done by licensees of the Court Reporters Board of Governors,
namely "official court reporters" and "official reporters pro
tempore." The author contends, however, that the absence of a
cross-referencing statute tying the Government Code definition
of "official reporters" and "official pro tempore reporters" to
this presumption in CCP Section 273 leaves an unwanted ambiguity
in the interpretation of the statute. The author states that
this "possibly leaves open the question of whether court
administrators could interpret these words expansively, arguing
that the Legislature could have defined this in the CCP as it
did in the Government Code but elected not to, and thereby
assign official or official pro tempore tasks to non-licensees."
In any case, the author contends that the nexus between a
licensed reporter and the characteristic of being evidence of
the testimony and proceedings should be made express here, in
the same way that it is made expressly in the context of
deposition reporters and depositions. The author cites CCP
Section 2025.330(b), which requires that testimony by a
deponent, "if taken stenographically, shall be by a person
certified pursuant to Article 3 (commencing with Section 8020)
of Chapter 13 of Division 3 of the Business and Professions
Code" as an example where this connection is expressly made.
To address this perceived lack of clarity, this bill adds a new
section to the Code of Civil Procedure that simply provides that
official reporters and official reporters pro tempore shall be
appointed as provided by Section 69942 of the Government Code.
In addition, the bill adds the clause "notwithstanding any other
provision of law" to reinforce that the rule of Section 273
applies in every circumstance--namely that only transcripts made
by licensed official court reporters and official reporters pro
tempore can be considered as prima facie evidence of that
testimony and the proceedings.
Although the bill seeks to make express what is already
considered to be a strong presumption within Section 273 to
avoid possible misapplication of the statute, bill proponents
have not provided and the Committee is unaware of any examples
where a court has interpreted the statute so broadly as to
assign official reporting tasks to a non-licensee.
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REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
Deposition Reporters Association of California
Opposition
None on file
Analysis Prepared by : Anthony Lew / JUD. / (916) 319-2334