Posted: April 3, 2012
Rules of Civil Procedure
URCP 005. Service and filing of pleadings and other papers. Amend. Requires a certificate of service appended to each document that has to be served. Permits the court to serve documents by email.
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Posted: April 3, 2012
URCP 005. Service and filing of pleadings and other papers. Amend. Requires a certificate of service appended to each document that has to be served. Permits the court to serve documents by email.
The proposed modification to Rule 5 appears to substantially increase the amount of paper generated by each law office. A mailing or service certificate for a group of documents served together (affidavit, motioon. memorandum, etc.) should be adequate. It should not be necessary that a separate certificate be attached to each separate document.
URCP Rule 5(f) Certificate of Service.
We are filing multiples of the number of pieces of paper that we did some years ago to process default collection matters. HELP!!! Forget this proposed amendment, or allow exceptions (to requiring a separate sheet of paper for the service certification) for default matters such as the required military affidavit, memorandum of costs, affidavit of collection costs, etc.
As an additional suggestion, the above three mentioned affidavits with their accompanying certificates of service should be condensed into 1 (ONE) sheet of paper, not expanded to 6 (SIX).
I believe that the majority of civil matters filed are collections. Perhaps the majority of input for rules changes should be sought from those involved in collections.
Doesn’t proposed URCP Rule 005(f)duplicate (with perhaps a bit more clarity), what Rule 005(d) already says?
We need to stop creating redundancies in Rule amendments. Proposed subsection (f) should begin “Except where a separate certificate of service is served as required by Rule 26(f), . . .”
I object to the proposed amendments to Utah Rule of Civil Procedure 5. The proposed amendments read:
“(f) Certificate of Service. Every pleading, order or paper required by this rule to be served shall include a signed certificate of service showing the name of the document served, the date and manner of service and on whom it was served.
(g) Service by the court. The court may serve papers on a party or attorney by email.”
I object to these proposed amendments on AT LEAST the following grounds: (1) A certificate of service is for the COURT, not the party being served. Why create extra paperwork, hassle, potential for sanction claim, and concordant destruction of judicial economy? (2) Service from the Court by e-mail will prove a disaster considering, inter alia, e-mail address changes, I.T. problems, SPAM filters, etc. Both these section amendments thus prove BAD IDEAS. They will create far more problems than they will resolve.
Respectfully,
J. Adam White
(Utah Bar No. 11853)
I have a concern with Proposed Rule 5(f). As pointed out by Joshua Lee, this is largely duplicative of Rule 5(d). Rather than introduce an entirely new subsection that may create some ambiguities and conflicts (e.g., who is supposed to sign the certificate? Does 5(f) take precedence over 5(d) with regard to discovery documents?), why not either rewrite 5(d) or delete the redundant provisions?
Here is an example of rewriting 5(d) to incorporate the changes:
(d) Filing. All papers after the complaint required to be served upon a party shall be filed with the court either before or within a reasonable time after service. Every pleading, order or paper required by this rule to be served shall include a certificate of service signed by the person effecting service showing the name of the document served, the date and manner of service and on whom it was served. The certificate of service shall be. Rule 26(f) governs the filing of papers related to discovery.
Or, you could keep 5(f) (after amending it to say who should sign the certificate and that 26(f) governs discovery) and change 5(d) as follows:
(d) Filing. All papers after the complaint required to be served upon a party shall be filed with the court either before or within a reasonable time after service, and shall include a certificate of service as required by subsection (f) of this rule.
Nathan Whittaker
Day, Shell & Liljenquist, LC
There should be an exception for clerical errors. For example, in the event that an electronically issued garnishment does not have the signature pages uploaded/provided to the filer by the issuing clerk, the filer should not have to pay an additional fee to obtain the signed copy from exchange. As we have had this happen periiodically, we want to assure that the clerks will still be able to rectify their error by signing and emailing us a copy of the issued garnishment without incurring further fees.
G. Scott Jensen,
Jensen & Sullivan, LLC
Addressing the other two posts that take issue with proposed URCP 5(f) because they believe it duplicates URCP 5(d), there is a DISTINCT and TROUBLING difference between Sections (d) and (f). Yet, the Advisory Committee Notes state that Section (d) exists to give the courts the power to require the filing of ALL documents served (including discovery documents) on other parties to also be served with the court or follow the status quo and require the filing of the certificates of service pertaining to served discovery documents. Section (d) therefore does not address the service upon other PARTIES of a certificate of service at all. Proposed Section (f), on the other hand, adds a new requirement upon legal counsel. As the law now stands – by way of Section (d) and the referenced URCP 26(f) therein – counsel need not serve certificates of service… only file the certificates with the court.
Section (f) would thus change the venerable practice of filing certificates of service only with the Court. Should Section (f) become effective, legal counsel would face yet more paperwork, procedural hoops, and risk of sanctions should one forget to include a certificate of service with all documents filed upon other parties. Those factors, in turn, open a Pandora’s Box of new claims for sanctions for failure to include the certficate in service, procedural disputes, issues focusing on matters procedural rather than the substance of the case, and slapping judicial economy in the face. Further, Section (f) is not needed; indeed, should an opposing party wish to have a copy of a certificate of service they need only call opposing counsel or the court to obtain one. Therefore, where Section (f) shall create more needless procedural work and risk for legal counsel, shall mock judicial econonomy, and where the section itself is needless, proposed URCP 5(f) should fail.
My concern with the amendment is that it appears unnecessary and wasteful. Pleadings and motions are often filed in conjunction with other documents and the current practice of including one mailing certificate addressing all of the documents mailed provides notice and proof of what was sent to the parties and the court.
If the problem is in reviewing a e-filed motion or memorandum it seems like there could be a technological solution that allows an e-filer to confirm that the document(s) was served on the appropriate party and that information could be relayed to the judge when the document is opened. That would eliminate the search for a certificate of mailing that relates to the motion or memorandum while still saving the expense and resources of attaching a separate certificate of mailing to each paper filed.