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Joseph ZernikRe: Various emails and facsimile transmissionsOctober 28, 2009Page: 2Court that were unified into a single Superior Court in January, 2000. The resulting unifiedcourt is now divided into twelve districts, and housed in hver fifty court locations spread outover the 4,000 square miles of the County. The Superior Court inherited the legacy casemanagement systems that had been implemented and developed independently by the formermunicipal courts. The court is still in the process of integrating all of those legacy systems,many of which are still different from court location to court location. In addition, the statewideJudicial Branch is developing and implementing a single case management system for all courtsin Califomia. That statewide system is not scheduled to be implemented in most courts until2013, at the earliest, and has been delayed by decreases ih state funding due to the economicdown tum.

Register of ActionsThe court is not required to maintain a register of, actions. Govemment Code section

69845 provides that the clerk of the Court "may" keep a register of actions "in which shall beentered the title of each cause, with the date of its commencyment and a memorandum of everysubsequent proceeding in the action with its date. Altematively, in lieu of maintaining a registerof actions, the clerk may preserve all the court records fi]ed, lodged, or maintained in connectionwith the case. Govemment Code section 69845.5.

At the moment, the Los Angeles Superior Court Rreserves all the court records filed,lodged, or maintained in connection with the case in l ieulof h1aintaining a register of actions, asauthorized by section 69845.5. >

While many people treat the Case Summary as a fast( history or a register of actions, it isnot, at the moment, an register of actions or an official relcord of the court. This is why there isa disclaimer on the court's website that reads:

"The Courts and County of Los Angeles declare that information provided by andobtained from this site, intended for use on a casd-bYi-case basis and typically by partiesof record and paliicipants, does not constitute thelOf:6.Cial record of the court. Any user ofthe information is hereby advised that it is being !provided as is and that it may be subjectto error or omission. The user acknowledges and ~ g r ~ e s that neither the Los AngelesSuperior Court nor the County of Los Angeles arJ liable in any way whatsoever for theaccuracy or validity of the information provided.')Part of the reason that the court has not yet adopted the Case Summary as a register of

actions is because, at the moment, as discussed above, there are at least six different legacy casemanagement systems in operation in the Los Angeles S u p e r ~ o r Court: A centralized Sustain,district versions of Sustain, LACAS, ClVAS, SCOT, a n SJE. Each of these systems is usedintemally, and information from these different systems is used to generate the Case Summaryavailable over the Internet and at the public terminals at uhe courthouse. However, if a clerkgenerates a case history using the intemal case managemfnt system at the court house,depending upon which case management system is used ;1t tillat courthouse, the case history

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Joseph ZemikRe: Various emails and facsimile transmissionsOctober 28, 2009Page: 3report may be in a different format from the Case S u m m ~ r y or may contain additionalinformation.

The court is currently considering a proposal to have the Case Summary serve as thecourt's register of actions. However, there are still issues that need to be assessed and addressedbefore that can be done.

Corrections to Case SummaryIn one of your communications you state that a correction was made to an entry in the

Case Summary or case history in Santa Monica in one ofyour cases. It was not clear whetheryou were referring to the Case Summary provided over the Internet and at public terminals at thecourthouse, or whether this was a case history generated by a clerk with the unique casemanagement system used internally at that courthouse.

In some court districts and cOUlthouses, the clerks use a legacy version of Sustain, whichdeveloped differently and may include additional inform(,l.tion or present the infom1ation in adifferent forn1at. If a clerk uses a local version of Sustain at his or her non-public terminal toprint out a case history, it may not be in the format or may have additional information that is notpresented in the Case Summary available over the Internet.

In any event, a nunc pro tunc order is not normallV' required for changes to party nameentries, document filing entries or event scheduling entries in the Case Summary.

Whether or not a nunc pro tunc order is warranted for a change in a minute order ordocuments in the case file may depend on the c i r c u m s t a n ~ e s and the nature of the order ordocument. Whether a nunc pro tunc order is required or warranted in a particular circumstanceis normally within the discretion of the judge presiding in the matter. See Code of CivilProcedure section 128(a)(8).

Judgement BookPrior to 1974, all judgements of the superior, municipal, and justice courts were entered

in a "Judgement Book." Code of Civil Procedure section 668. Although courts in some countiescontinue to enter judgments in a judgment book, section 668 no longer provides the exclusivemeans of entry. Code of Civil Procedure section 668.5 authorizes alternatives, including makinga microfilm copy of the individual judgement, as is done in the Los Angeles Superior Court.

Index of Civil Cas1In the Los Angeles Superior Court there is no civil index, as such. Rather, case specificinformation is generated electronically in response to an inquiry.A person may conduct such a search personally without any fee at the public terminals at

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Joseph ZernikRe: Various emails and facsimile transmissionsOctober 28, 2009Page: 4the courthouses, or may request a search of files at the cqurthouse by paying the search feeauthorized by Government Code section 26854. For a qmvenience, such a search may beconducted over the Internet by paying the fee authorized ,by California Rule of Court 2.506

This is consistent with Califomia Rules of Court,that require courts that do maintain anindex of civil cases electronically to make the record available to the public "in some form."California Rule of Court 2.503(a).

Minute OrdersMinute orders, unless sealed or involving cases rt(quired to be confidential, should beavailable in the case file. There may be a reference to minute orders in the Case Summary,

However, as noted above, the Case Summary does not at the moment constitute the court'sregister of actions or an official court record. As permitted by Government Code section69845.5, in lieu of maintaining a register of actions, the clerk preserves all the court recordsfiled, lodged, or maintained in connection with the case.

There is no mandated fornl for minute orders. They are generally produced by the casemanagement system in use in each of the courts, and can ;vary in appearance and substance fromcase management system to case management system, and from clerk to clerk.

If a minute order exists and is not confidential, you should be able to examine it in thecase file or obtain a copy from the clerk by paying the statutory copying fee. In a court of thissize and complexity, regrettably, sometimes filed docum:ents become lost or misplaced. Whenthat occurs, often a duplicate can be printed from the appropriate case management systemutilized in the particular court (Sustain, LACAS, etc.), and placed in the court file. However, if afiaed document was submitted by a litigant and was not imaged by the court, a motion may needto be made to the trial court presiding in the matter to try ;to recreate the document from copiesretained by the parties or by stipulation.

Inspection of Court FilesYou complain that you have requested an oppom.,nity to inspect and copy the court'sfiles in at least two cases, Marina v. LA County, case number BS 109420, and Sturgeon v. L.A.County, case number BC35l286, but have not been able to do so.Court files that are not confidential or that have not been sealed should be available for

inspection at the courthouse where they are pending when they are not in use by judicial officers,court staff, or being inspected by other members of the public. Neither of the files youmentioned are confidential or sealed. I have confirmed that, except for the latest volume of theMarina case, which was then in use in the courtroom, these two files are located in Room 112 ofthe Stanley Mosk Courthouse located at III N. Hill Street, Los Angeles, CA, and are availablefor inspection. The Sturgeon files are sequestered in that room to provide extra security for thisoften requested file, but are open to inspection by anyone;.

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Joseph ZernikRe: Various emails and facsimile transmissionsOctober 28, 2009Page: 5

You can obtain copies of any of the pleadings in trese cases by paying the statutorycopying fee of 11fty cents a page. Government Code section 70627. Generally, those fees mustbe paid in advance. As a convenience you can inspect such records and download court recordsthat have been scanned or imaged, over the Internet by p ~ y i n g the prescribed fee for electronicaccess authorized by Califomia Rule of Court 2.506. T h court generally only currently scansand images court records in the Central District of the Court.

Legal AdviceIn a number of your letters you request that clerks advise you as to the legality or

illegality of certain pleadings or events. Clerks are not authorized to give legal advice. If youwish to challenge the legality of a particular pleading, or obtain a judicial ruling as to a paliicularrecord, you may need to bring an appropriate legal action or file an appropriate motion in thecase.

Comments on Pending Cases and Ex Parte CommunicationsWith certain exceptions both judicial officers and ,their staff are ethically precluded from

publicly commenting upon pending cases outside of the courtroom or court proceedings. Codeof Judicial Ethics, canon 3B(9); Rothman, California Judicial Conduct Handbook, 5.31.

Except in certain circumstances judicial officers Gimnot consider ex partecommunications that are made outside of the courtroom proceedings or in communications notfiled in compliance with the California Rules of Court. Code of Judicial Ethics, canon 3B(7).For this reason, David Rothman in his California Judicial Conduct Handbook, recommends thatjudges and their staff set up screening procedures for email, facsimile transmissions, and regularmail to minimize the risk of such violations. Rothman, s'l-tpra, 5.06.

Communications concerning pending cases should be accomplished as part of thecourtroom proceedings or in written communications filea and served upon the parties in theform and manner prescribed in the Rules of Court. In fact, California Rule of Court 2.118(a)directs clerks not to accept "any papers that do not comply with the rules" set forth in the RulesofCoUli.

Very truly yours," - ~ ~ ~ Frederick R. BennettIComi Counsel