M E M O R A N D U M

The Civil Justice Association of California (CJAC) has asked the Legislature and the courts to make a new review of the tax dollars that would be spent under personal injury lawyer-sponsored legislation to strip away most of the privacy protections afforded people involved in civil lawsuits. Attached you will find a copy of the letter that was sent to the chairs of the Senate and Assembly Appropriation committees (a similar letter was sent to Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald George).

The legislation, SB 11 (Escutia) and AB 36 (Steinberg), essentially says that information collected in the course of a civil lawsuit but not used as part of a trial is nevertheless presumed to be public information. The legislation would require defendants to request costly and time consuming document by document review in an attempt to persuade a judge to grant an exception to this presumption.

At an April 3, 2001, Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, a plaintiffs' lawyer spokesman admitted to Senator Byron Sher that SB 11 would require that every request to protect deposition or settlement privacy would require a judge's review of the material at issue and a ruling applying a complex test to determine whether confidentiality is permitted. This would be the case no matter whether all parties agreed that confidentiality was entirely appropriate.

If you would like further information please call me at 916-443-4900 or visit our website at www.cjac.org.

To view the letter to Senator Alpert and Assemblywoman Migden regarding the fiscal impact, click here.