BILL ANALYSIS
AB 2475
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Date of Hearing: May 19, 2010
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Felipe Fuentes, Chair
AB 2475 (Beall) - As Amended: May 11, 2010
Policy Committee: JudiciaryVote:8-1
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
No Reimbursable:
SUMMARY
This bill establishes a statewide complaint process regarding
family law experts employed or appointed by the courts.
Specifically, this bill:
1) Requires the Judicial Council, by January 1, 2012, to
adopt a rule of court establishing a uniform procedure for
handling and responding to complaints regarding family law
experts, including mediators, evaluators, special masters,
and minor's council, and to develop a complaint form,
information sheets, and other resources as needed to make
the complaint process easily accessible.
2) Requires each trial court to have a complaint
coordinator to investigate all complaints that cannot be
resolved informally.
3) Requires the final decision on a complaint to be made by
the presiding judge or their designee.
4) Requires the Judicial Council to develop a list of
appropriate responses to substantiated complaints and a
timetable for completion of the complaint process.
5) Requires the complaint coordinator to report annually on
complaints received and their disposition, and requires the
Council to report specified summary information about the
complaint procedure to the Legislature by February 1, 2013
and annually thereafter until January 1, 2017.
FISCAL EFFECT
AB 2475
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Each court is currently required to have developed a process to
address complaints against child custody mediators, child
custody evaluators, and minor's counsel. This bill increases
workload in this area by exposing all other types of family
court experts to this process, requiring personal interviews
with the complainant, and providing the person subject to a
complaint an opportunity to respond. According to the
Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC), most courts handle
complaints using a written procedure only. The new procedures
would, on average, add a few more hours to a process that
currently takes two to three hours.
Based on previous studies, the AOC estimates about 100,000
mediations occur annually, and about 10% of clients were unhappy
with the mediation. The increase time to process complaints
under the new procedure is equivalent to about 10 full-time
positions statewide. While this added workload could probably
be absorbed at many of the smaller courts, it would likely
require additional personnel at the larger courts. Factoring the
impact of broadening the pool of those potentially subjected to
complaints, the statewide impact on the courts would exceed $1
million annually. [Trial Court Trust Fund, of which about 50%
comes from the General Fund]
The AOC will incur minor one-time costs to develop the rule of
court and minor ongoing costs for five years to complete the
statewide report regarding the complaint procedure.
COMMENTS
Background and Purpose . Judicial immunity dates back to English
common law and bars, absolutely, all civil actions against
judges for their judicial acts, no matter how erroneous or
malicious those acts may be. (Tupen v. Booth (1880) 56 Cal. 65,
68.) Absolute immunity is necessary to protect the independence
of the judiciary, by preventing disgruntled litigants from
relitigating their cases against judges in civil tort actions.
For the same policy objectives of promoting uninhibited and
independent decisionmaking, California courts have long extended
absolute judicial immunity to non-judges who act in a judicial
or quasi-judicial capacity, through the concept of
quasi-judicial immunity. The limited group of individuals
entitled to quasi-judicial immunity includes commissioners,
referees, administrative law judges, and prosecutors.
AB 2475
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This list of those provided quasi-judicial immunity was expanded
20 years ago, in Howard v. Drapkin (1990) 222 Cal.App.3d 843, to
include a narrow group of neutral third-parties acting in a
judicial capacity, in order to protect the courts' access to
independent and impartial information. Noting the important
policy of attracting independent and impartial services and
expertise to an overburdened judiciary, the court held that all
"nonjudicial persons who fulfill quasi-judicial functions
intimately related to the judicial process should be given
absolute quasi-judicial immunity for damage claims arising from
their performance of duties in connection with the judicial
process."
In it prior version, AB 1275 sought to eliminate quasi-judicial
immunity from private third-parties appointed by the court in
family law proceedings for their expertise, including special
masters, minor's counsel, investigators, therapists, evaluators,
receivers, bankruptcy trustees, experts, and factfinders. (Not
all of these groups actually enjoy quasi-judicial immunity
today, and some of them, like bankruptcy trustees, are not
appointed by the family court.)
Due to significant concerns that this approach would abrogate
well-settled case law and dissuade some court-appointed experts
from participating in family law proceedings, making it more
likely that the courts would have less information on which to
make decisions in family law cases, the Assembly Judiciary
Committee deleted all provisions of the bill. The committee's
amendments instead require the Judicial Council and the courts
to implement a uniform complaint process regarding such
court-appointed experts.
Analysis Prepared by : Chuck Nicol / APPR. / (916) 319-2081