BILL ANALYSIS �
AB 2747
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ASSEMBLY THIRD READING
AB 2747 (Judiciary Committee)
As Amended May 14, 2014
Majority vote
JUDICIARY 7-0 APPROPRIATIONS 12-5
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|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 |
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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error was inadvertently repealed.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
FN: 0003553
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