BILL ANALYSIS �
AB 2256
Page 1
CONCURRENCE IN SENATE AMENDMENTS
AB 2256 (Garcia)
As Amended June 16, 2014
Majority vote
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|ASSEMBLY: |52-11|(April 3, 2014) |SENATE: |30-4 |(August 14, |
| | | | | |2014) |
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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
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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.
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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.
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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