BILL ANALYSIS Ó AB 2256 Page 1 CONCURRENCE IN SENATE AMENDMENTS AB 2256 (Garcia) As Amended June 16, 2014 Majority vote ----------------------------------------------------------------- |ASSEMBLY: |52-11|(April 3, 2014) |SENATE: |30-4 |(August 14, | | | | | | |2014) | ----------------------------------------------------------------- Original Committee Reference: JUD. SUMMARY : Revises and increases statutorily prescribed fees for serving, executing, and processing required court notices, writs, orders, and other services provided by sheriffs, and makes various other changes relating to service of civil process. Specifically, this bill : 1)Increases the fees for many services provided by sheriff's departments, such as serving, executing, and processing court notices, writs, and orders. Among other things, the fee for service of a summons and complaint is increased from $35 to $40, and the fee for serving or executing any process or notice required by law is also increased from $35 to $40. 2)Increases, from $15 to $18, the set-aside amount of any fee collected by the sheriff's civil division or marshal under Government Code Sections 26721, 26722, 26725, 26726, 26728, 26730, 26733.5, 26734, 26736, 26738, 26742, 26743, 26744, and 26750 that is required to be deposited in a special fund in the county treasury. 3)Repeals the United States (U.S.) citizenship requirement that applies to any person who seeks to service legal process in an action against a sheriff. 4)Requires access to a gated community by a sheriff, registered process server, or licensed private investigator, whether or not a guard is present, for the purpose of performing lawful service of process or service of a subpoena, and repeals the requirement for disclosure of the identity of the person to be served to a guard at the gated community. AB 2256 Page 2 5)Allows the sheriff to publish notice of service of a protective order on the sheriff's public Web site, in addition to providing such notice by email or telephone to the person protected by the order. The Senate amendments : 1)Narrow the scope of the bill by removing various provisions relating to, among other things: civil contempt warrants, service of garnishment upon banks, and service upon companies of unknown business form. 2)Remove the existing requirement that a person serving legal process identify the person or persons to be served to any guard or security personnel before being granted access to the gated community. 3)Clarify the permissive authority of a sheriff to notify a person protected by a protected order that the order was served by posting this notification on the sheriff's Web site. FISCAL EFFECT : None COMMENTS : This bill, sponsored by the California State Sheriff's Association and the Los Angeles County Sheriff, primarily seeks to increase fees for service of legal process and other types of services provided by sheriffs. In most cases, the fee increases sought by this bill are modest and in the range of $5 to $10 per service provided. In addition, this bill contains a number of otherwise unrelated provisions that seek to increase operational efficiencies for sheriffs in carrying out their day-to-day duties related to service of civil process, and conserve scarce resources. According to the author, the primary purpose of this bill is to make modest increases to the fees charged by sheriffs' departments to address significant budget shortfalls that have impaired the sheriffs' civil process operations. Proponents state that the fees currently assessed cover only a portion of the costs sheriffs incur in performing service of process, and often force sheriffs' budgets to bear the majority of the burden. They contend that these proposed fee increases are needed to increase revenue, help offset increasing costs, and make service of process functions more self-supporting to protect local governments from having to cover budgetary shortfalls. AB 2256 Page 3 This bill seeks increases to most types of civil process-related service offered by sheriffs under the Government Code (commencing with Section 26720) specifying fees to be charged by sheriffs. In addition, this bill seeks to increase, from $15 to $18, the amount of any applicable fee collected by the sheriff's civil division that is required to be deposited in a special fund in the county treasury. The proposed new $18 set-aside amount applies to 14 types of common fees specified in the Government Code. According to the author, this is not a fee increase, but rather a subsidy provision that allows the sheriff to retain a greater share of fee revenue for its civil operations and minimize the amount that taxpayers might have to ultimately subsidize when the sheriff's costs exceed its revenue. An increasing number of Californians now live in gated communities that frequently are staffed by a guard at the main entrance. Existing law requires a sheriff or other person seeking to perform service of process upon a resident of a gated community staffed by a guard to display his or her identification to the guard and disclose the identity of the person to be served. According to the author, conditional access to a gated community conflicts with the authority of the sheriff to access such areas to perform his or her legal duties, including lawful service of process. Moreover, the author contends that this requirement serves little useful purpose other than to alert a resident of a gated community that a sheriff is present at the guard's station to serve legal process and allow the resident an opportunity to avoid being served. Accordingly, this bill would simply repeal the requirement that the person serving process disclose the identity of the person to be served to the guard at a gated community, if there is one. Existing law permits but does not require the sheriff to notify a person protected by a protective order that the order was served by contacting the protected person by phone or email. Existing law already requires notification to the protected person by U.S. mail to confirm the order was served, and this bill does not disturb that requirement. This bill would revise these provisions to allow the sheriff to post this information to the sheriff's Web site in addition to (but not in lieu of) email or telephone notification. According to the author, this will help conserve sheriffs' resources because Web site posting is more efficient than telephone calling, particularly for large batches of protective orders. AB 2256 Page 4 Finally, this bill repeals an outdated and peculiar provision of law, dating to 1951, that requires any person serving process in an action against a sheriff to be a U.S. citizen. Analysis Prepared by : Anthony Lew / JUD. / (916) 319-2334 FN: 0004022