BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    Ó



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          ASSEMBLY THIRD READING
          AB 2747 (Judiciary Committee)
          As Amended  May 14, 2014
          Majority vote 

           JUDICIARY           7-0         APPROPRIATIONS      12-5        
           
           ----------------------------------------------------------------- 
          |Ayes:|Wieckowski, Alejo, Chau,  |Ayes:|Gatto, Bocanegra,         |
          |     |Dickinson, Garcia,        |     |Bradford, Ian Calderon,   |
          |     |Muratsuchi, Stone         |     |Campos, Eggman, Gomez,    |
          |     |                          |     |Holden, Pan, Quirk,       |
          |     |                          |     |Ridley-Thomas, Weber      |
          |     |                          |     |                          |
          |-----+--------------------------+-----+--------------------------|
          |     |                          |Nays:|Bigelow, Donnelly, Jones, |
          |     |                          |     |Linder, Wagner            |
           ----------------------------------------------------------------- 
           
          SUMMARY  :  Makes various changes to the California codes as part  
          of the Judiciary Committee's civil omnibus bill.  Specifically,  
           this bill  , among other things:   


          1)Restores a civil penalty for a willful violation of notary  
            public standards of conduct that as the result of a drafting  
            error was inadvertently repealed.


          2)Updates the Evidence Code to reflect the addition of two types  
            of evidentiary privilege that had inadvertently been omitted  
            from the list of all relationship-based privileged  
            communications, and corrects incorrect cross-references.


          3)Removes specific references to domestic partners in the  
            Probate Code that became obsolete when spouses and domestic  
            partners were guaranteed the same rights and responsibilities  
            under California law.


          4)Makes technical and conforming changes to statutory provisions  
            and statutory forms regarding claim of right to possession and  
            prejudgment claim of right to possession.








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          5)Corrects a drafting error in SB 120 (Lowenthal), Chapter 560,  
            Statutes of 2009, that was intended to cover all utility  
            providers but inadvertently failed to extend those provisions  
            to one type of special utility district.


          6)Extends, for an additional five years, the sunset date for  
            provisions requiring a car rental company to be the agent for  
            service of process for claims against insured persons who  
            reside outside of the United States.


          7)Repeals the requirement that a confidential marriage license  
            may be used only in the county in which it was issued.


          8)Exempts a probate referee from paying a filing fee for a  
            request for special notice when acting in his or her official  
            capacity.


          9)Removes obsolete provisions regarding personal bonds.


          10)Requires an independent civil action to be filed for any  
            dispute about the reasonableness of fees charged by a  
            deposition officer, as specified.


          11)Deletes inappropriately broad reporting requirements  
            inadvertently assigned to the Judicial Council pursuant to the  
            study established by AB 900 (Buchanan), Chapter 354, Statutes  
            of 2011, and instead limits the scope of the report to the  
            effects of AB 900 on the administration of justice.


          12)Clarifies that residential leases having a security deposit  
            provision are not by virtue of that fact barred from being  
            signed electronically by the parties, if they so wish, under  
            the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (UETA).










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          13)Adds bicycle motocross to the list of hazardous recreational  
            activities under Government Code Section 831.7.


          14) Clarifies that a putative spouse must be the innocent party  
            in a voidable marriage.


          15)Clarifies that the court's decision to grant a fee waiver in  
            a case involving a conservatorship or guardianship should be  
            based on the financial resources of the proposed conservatee  
            or ward.


          16)Includes employees among those persons a party must produce  
            at trial upon proper notice.


          17)Makes other technical corrections and clarifying changes.


           FISCAL EFFECT :  According to the Assembly Appropriations  
          Committee, negligible fiscal impact.

           COMMENTS  :  This bill is the Assembly Judiciary Committee's  
          omnibus civil law bill.  It incorporates over a dozen different  
          proposals submitted by various groups seeking to make technical,  
          clarifying, or other modest changes to civil law.  In order to  
          be included in the bill, each provision must be not so  
          substantive as to be more appropriate for a stand-alone bill.  
          The purpose of the omnibus bill is to increase the efficiency of  
          the legislative process, conserve legislative resources, and  
          eliminate the need to unnecessarily hear a number of stand-alone  
          bills that might otherwise have to be introduced and heard  
          separately through the legislative process.  Several of the  
          individual proposals are briefly discussed below.

          AB 2610 (Skinner), Chapter 562, Statutes of 2012, gives  
          occupants in foreclosed properties the right to file the  
          Prejudgment Claim of Right to Possession form (CP 10.5) at any  
          time before judgment.  However, there was an unfortunate but  
          significant legislative oversight in that the bill failed to  
          update the forms themselves to reflect the underlying changes in  
          the law.  As a result, the existing statutory forms continue to  








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          provide outdated and incorrect information about the rights and  
          procedural requirements that apply to the people who are served  
          with these forms under the new law enacted by AB 2610.  Because  
          the forms are statutory, rather than created by the Judicial  
          Council, legislation is needed to update the content of the  
          forms. 

          This bill amends the Code of Civil Procedure (CCP) Sections  
          415.46 and 1174.3 to update two statutory forms known as the  
          Prejudgment Claim of Right to Possession (CP 10.5), and the  
          Claim of Right to Possession (CP 10).  The updates are necessary  
          to conform the statutory forms, which are often served upon  
          occupants in foreclosed properties, with the changes in the  
          underlying law that were made when AB 2610 was chaptered in  
          2012.  Additionally, CCP Section 1174.25 is amended to provide  
          an additional cross-reference to the change in the law.

          Public Resources Code Section 21189.2, enacted by AB 900,  
          currently requires the Judicial Council to conduct a study and  
          "report to the Legislature, on or before January 1, 2015, on the  
          effects of [the bill], which shall include, but not be limited  
          to, a description of the benefits, costs, and detriments of the  
          certification of leadership projects pursuant to this chapter."   
          (emphasis added.)  According to the Judicial Council, Senate  
          President pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg and his staff  
          acknowledged that this study language was inadvertently written  
          too broadly, and deals with issues that are outside the Judicial  
          Council's expertise and areas of experience.  This bill  
          clarifies and appropriately narrows the statutorily mandated  
          study language to limit its focus to the impacts of the act on  
          the administration of justice, as well as extending the deadline  
          of the study to coincide with the new deadlines in the act that  
          were recently extended by SB 743 (Steinberg) Chapter 386,  
          Statutes of 2013.

          SB 495 (Fuller), Chapter 305, Statutes of 2011, increased the  
          waiting period to retain unclaimed property (safe deposit box  
          contents) of no apparent commercial value from 18 months to 'not  
          less than seven years'.  That bill also specified changes to the  
          language in CCP Section 1565, but did not include CCP Section  
          1501.5 which also referenced the retention time period.   
          According to the State Controller's Office, this was an  
          oversight; accordingly, this bill updates CCP Section 1501.5 to  
          reflect the correct time of retention and to be consistent with  








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          CCP Section 1565.

          This bill amends Civil Code Section 1942.2, and Government Code  
          Section 60371 to correct an oversight stemming from the  
          enactment of SB 120.  SB 120 changed the law regarding the  
          notice that utility districts must provide to tenants when the  
          utilities are shutoff, but through a legislative oversight, one  
          type of utility district was omitted  from the scope of the bill  
          - the type of special district governed by Government Code  
          Section 60371. Without this proposal, all utility districts are  
          subject to one rule (articulated by SB 120), while a different  
          rule (the pre-SB 120 rule) applies only to Government Code  
          Section 60371-specific special districts.  There is no public  
          policy justification for continuing this discrepancy that was  
          created by legislative oversight.

          This bill also restores consistency to the set of Evidence Code  
          Sections on evidentiary privilege and specifically privileged  
          communications by adding two types of evidentiary privilege to  
          Evidence Code Section 917 that are included throughout relevant  
          neighboring sections, but were inadvertently omitted from  
          Evidence Code Section 917 due to drafting error.  

          This bill also corrects a drafting error in AB 886 (Runner),  
          Chapter 399, Statutes of 2007 that unintentionally removed a  
          civil penalty for a willful violation of notary public standards  
          of conduct.  The statute previously provided for penalties of  
          both willful and negligent conduct, but AB 886 neglected to  
          retain the willful penalties when recasting the code sections.   
          According to the Secretary of State, the drafting error has had  
          the effect of tying the hands of Administrative Law Judges who  
          now only have the option to classify these violations as  
          negligent, which carries a lesser penalty. As a result, some  
          judges choose to assess no penalty rather than downgrade a  
          willful violation to the lower status of a negligent act.  This  
          bill reinstates the prior $1,500 civil penalty for willful  
          violation of Government Code Section 8214.1 (d).
           

          Analysis Prepared by  :    Anthony Lew / JUD. / (916) 319-2334 


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