On Monday CT Attorney Wyatt
Kopp proposed legislation in front of the Judiciary Committee to
curb the state taxpayers from financing frivolous litigation through
court fee waivers. The proposed bill in its entirely is discussed in our blog post linked below.
http://www.middletowninsider.com/2013/04/hb-6692-bill-to-prevent-frivolous.html
Kopp
encourages people w ho support this to write the Connecticut Judiciary
Committee an e-mail supporting HB 6692. The e-mail address for the
Judiciary Committee is Jud.testimony@cga.ct.gov
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SUPPLEMENTAL TESTIMONY IN SUPPORT OF RAISED H.B. 6992
I
wanted to thank the Judiciary Committee for hearing my testimony on
H.B. 6692 which would reform the present fee waiver system. Rep. Ritter
made a very interesting comment during the testimony when he noted that
it is difficult to determine which cases are frivolous. The wisdom of
the proposed reform is that it takes that determination out of the hands
of third parties and places it on the litigants themselves to make that
determination.
An
indigent litigant, under the proposed reform, would simply have to ask
themselves whether the case is worth doing the community service to
pursue. In that sense, the reform offers an alternative that achieves
the very some consideration that a litigant who is not eligible for a
fee waiver has to make. The proposed reform takes the determination of
whether a case is frivolous and places it where it belongs which is on
the litigant themselves rather than third parties. When access to the
system is completely free, there is no incentive whatsoever for a
litigant to self-regulate their claims.
The presence of court fees serve the dual purpose of both funding the
court and encouraging litigants to make a determination of whether a
case is worth the fees to file it. In this sense, the presence of fees
encourages the self-regulation of claims. On an even more general
level, money results in the allocation of scarce resources and it sets
priorities. It is because of the presence of fees in the system, for
those who do pay, that you do not see any cases of frivolous litigation
by persons or businesses who do have to pay the fees. Frivolous
litigation is not a problem among persons and businesses paying the fees
for the very reason that they have to ask themselves, is this case
worth the initial investment of fees to file it?
The
significance of Rep. Ritter’s comments are that they support H.B. 6692
for the very reason that the litigants themselves should be determining
whether their claims are frivolous and the present system has taken away
all the incentives to do so. As a result, third parties such as judges
are called on to make that determination because the litigants
themselves are encouraged by the present system to file claims for any
petty grievance no matter how small because it is free.
