Friday, May 23, 1997

Page 5

Chavez Tells Fast-Track Judges They Can't Bar Filing of Papers in Courtrooms

Lawyers and litigants can't be barred from filing papers in the courtroom just because the court file isn't physically present, the Los Angeles Superior Court's assistant presiding judge has told members.

"Litigants should not be held responsible for the Court's inability to produce its case files on demand," Judge Victor Chavez said in an April 24 memorandum to the court's 50 fast-track judges, which was made public yesterday.

Chavez reminded the jurists that statutes and court rules govern the filing and lodging of documents, and that lawyers are only required to arrange for file delivery in the case of an ex parte application. Where a document, including a proposed order or judgment, has been presented for filing or lodging in accordance with the applicable law or rule, "[t]here is no authority" for the court to refuse to accept it based on the lack of a file, Chavez said.

He noted that the court maintains an on-line case information system, saying "it should be possible in many instances to process the paper work without the case files."

The jurist attributed his statement to a recent presentation by Judge Robert O'Brien, who chairs the court's Rules Committee, on the subject of individual judge's court procedures, commonly referred to as "local-local" rules.

Chavez was unavailable yesterday for comment on the memo. O'Brien said there might have been some discussion of the subject at the time of his presentation, which was part of a training seminar for civil judges, but that it wasn't "a burning issue" for him personally.