Pacer Fees Class Action on Appeal
If you are
looking for electronic court filings and do not have access to subscription
databases like Westlaw, Lexis, or Bloomberg Law, you might use PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic
Records). Although accessible to the
public, documents on Pacer are also behind a paywall, but a class action case
currently on appeal may result in some changes to this model.
The class
action case involving the National Veterans Legal Services Program and other
nonprofit groups seeking to recover “excessive Pacer fees” is now on appeal to
the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The case, initially filed in 2016, argues
that Pacer charged fees much higher than the law “E-Government
Act of 2002” allows. Although not required,
the law does allow the judiciary to charge fees to access court records “only
to the extent necessary” for services.
At a time when it is easier and less costly than ever (a fraction of a
penny per page) to provide electronic resources online, some feel the fees
charged through Pacer are excessive.
The Federal
Judiciary provides public access to electronic court filings through Pacer, but
for a fee. Generally, it costs users 10
cents per page to view and download public court records, with some exceptions
including forgiving quarterly billing of fees less than $15. The fees from Pacer are used to pay for
judicial programs, however some argue that the judicial system has misused
proceeds and liken it to a sort of “slush fund.”
Federal
District Court Judge Shira A. Scheindlin signed a supporting brief arguing that
public court documents should be fully accessible to the public and that such a
paywall can be harmful to pro se litigants and academic researchers who may not
be able to afford the fees. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) also
provided a supporting
brief arguing in favor of “public scrutiny of judicial proceedings” as a
public right.
Read more
from the New
York Times, and this
website covering the Pacer Fees Class Action.
