Posted: June 21, 2021
Rules of Civil Procedure – Comment Period Closed August 5, 2021
URCP005. Service and filing of pleadings and other papers. Amend. The proposed amendments provide that no certificate of service is required when a paper is served by filing it with the court’s electronic-filing system under paragraph (b)(3)(A).
URCP024. Intervention. Amend. Under the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), an Indian Tribe is permitted to intervene in a child custody proceeding involving an Indian child. These cases arise in both district and juvenile court. Amendments to Rule 24, which track those already adopted in Juvenile Rule 50, will allow a uniform approach to ICWA to be adopted in both juvenile and district court.
Rule 62. Stay of proceedings to enforce a judgment or order. Amend. Among other amendments intended to streamline and improve Rule 62’s efficacy, the proposed amendments extend the time for the automatic stay from 14 days to 28 days and provide that a party may obtain a stay of the enforcement of a judgment or order to pay money by providing a bond or other security.
Why give judgment debtors an additional two weeks to hide their assets or to plan for bankruptcy? At least in commercial settings, there is a niche practice to protect/hide assets from creditors. I have no idea why the rule would be changed to provide more time for such machinations.
In regards to Rule 5, removing the requirement for a certificate of service, I would prefer that the requirement remain. There are times when I need to see when something was served. If I do represent someone, then I have to go look it up to when it was served. If I do not represent someone, and they are coming to me thinking of changing representation, I would have to check X-change and HOPE that counsel gave a good description to their filing and and that there were not other motions filed that day. This is assuming the signature date is accurate. I realize that the signature line should have the correct date, but people are more careful with dates on a certificate of service than a signature line. This change does not add anything and looks like it will just cause more work looking up dates. Any time saved will be lost and then some.
It never did make any sense to have to file a certificate of service when filing a document with the court that will be sent to an opposing attoreny by the court efiling system. Eliminating that requirement is a good change.