This and That in Court Tech – December, 2013

Big news on credit card fees and much more in a busy month of announcements.

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Credit Cards Companies May Not Be Able to Restrict Courts from Charging Payment Fees

In an anti-trust class action settlement announced on December 13, 2014, an article by Reuters News Service notes:

“Under certain circumstances, the settlement allows merchants to charge customers extra if they use Visa or MasterCard credit cards. But critics of the deal point out that those opportunities are extremely limited, and certain states prohibit such surcharging.”

Many courts have either decided not to provide credit card payment or used a third party service because of the need to charge and collect the percentage based fees.  It may be possible now to charge the fee and bring the card processing in-house.

The case title is: In Re Payment Card Interchange Fee and Merchant Discount Antitrust Litigation, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, No. 05-1720.  The news page at the court is:
https://www.nyed.uscourts.gov/news/final-decision-approving-settlement-visamastercard-mdl

A PDF of the settlement opinion can be downloaded at:
https://www.nyed.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/opinions/20131213-05md1720-mo.pdf

E-Courts 2014 Registration is Open

Registration for the 2014 e-Courts conference in Las Vegas is now open. The clock is ticking on e-Courts "Best Bet" pricing. Register before the end of the year and secure our lowest rate of $449 for e-Courts, December 8-10, 2014, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

e-Courts has a new look, and attendees can expect a refreshed conference format, including a dynamic keynote speaker, more opportunities for networking and even more time to browse the exhibit hall floor. Not to worry—these changes won't comprise the outstanding educational content that regular attendees have come to expect at the court community's must-attend meeting of the year.

In 2012, over 600 members of the court community turned out for highly-rated sessions like "There's a Court App For That...." and "Tech Tips from Judges." More details are coming early in 2014, but don't hesitate to register early to get the "Best Bet" rate. Make plans to join leaders from NCSC and hundreds of your court colleagues from around the country for three days in the desert.

The conference website, as always is, http://www.e-courts.org/ 

Connecticut Expands Civil Court File Internet Access

Via press release from the Connecticut Judicial Branch, December 13, 2013.

“The Judicial Branch is expanding public access to paperless civil files that have a return date on or after Jan. 1, 2014, allowing users to remotely access documents via the Internet, unless they are unavailable to the public because of a court order, rule or statute.”

“Users may view electronically available documents in civil files that have a return date before Jan. 1, 2014, only from a computer at any Judicial District courthouse unless the user is an attorney with an appearance in the file or a self-represented party with electronic access to the file.”

The full press release is available at: http://www.jud.ct.gov/external/news/press364.pdf

Idaho CMS Transition

An article posted at The Sacramento Bee newspaper website title, “Courts: Idaho case computer system at end of life” discusses the transition that the State of Idaho Courts have undertaken from their pioneering ISTARS system to the Tyler Odyssey CMS.

In particular “(t)he proposed program would expand those capabilities to add an online payment system, electronic filing of court documents and video conferencing.”

For the full article click here.

Arizona Extends E-Filing Contract

Via an Arizona Administrative Office of the Courts press release, December 10, 2013.

“The Arizona Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) and Intresys, Inc. today announced that a four-year extension of Intresys' e-filing contract with the State of Arizona has been finalized.

With this extension, Intresys will continue to be an integral part of providing e-filing services to Arizona's courts, legal community and the general public until at least June of 2019.

 "Intresys and the Court have successfully worked together on a public-private partnership for many years in an effort to develop a unique and effective e-filing system for the State of Arizona," the two parties said today in a joint statement.

 "The TurboCourt system has operated successfully in Arizona with virtually no interruptions of service since 2010.  Both the Court and Intresys are very proud of the success of their e-filing program."”

The Arizona TurboCourt web page is: http://azcourts.gov/azturbocourtinformation/Home.aspx

PDF/A-3 Standard Gains Early Traction

We learned from the PDF Association (http://www.pdfa.org/) that the very interesting PDF/A-3 standard has been adopted by a significant agency in Germany.  For those of you who may not remember, the PDF/A-3 (http://www.pdfa.org/tag/pdfa-3/ ) has the ability to contain both the PDF display content and the originating file in one container.

“As one of the first use cases, PDF/A-3 was implemented in Germany’s ZUGFeRD (Cart Horse) electronic invoicing standard. This data model for electronic invoice exchange between suppliers and customers uses PDF/A-3 as the transmission format to deliver an archive-ready image of an invoice together with corresponding machine-readable data.

As government and business increase the depth of their commitment to electronic records-management systems we expect to see many more such applications in which the power and flexibility of self-contained content is leveraged to deliver solutions for enterprise content applications.”

And Last

And all of us here at the NCSC wish our readers a Happy New Year!