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Court Records Should Be Free

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Re: Court Records Should Be Free

#91

Post by delusional »

ipython wrote: post #62
tptacek wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're almost there but not completing the circuit. Could tax dollars pay for "free" PACER access? Absolutely they could. But is that policy distributionally (a) regressive, (b) progressive, or (c) neutral? The answer is probably (a). The tax dollars come out of everybody's pocket. The benefits accrue disproportionately to a wealthy professional class. I think we're close to a pretty nice balance in the status quo: R…

Who ultimately pays the fees from pacer? You’re telling me that, out of the goodness of their hearts, the lawyers take it out of their own paycheck? You’d better believe that cost, however small, is passed along to the clients of those law firms. Now if that cost were to go to zero- no I don’t think the lawyers will charge less. But I do think that even the presence of a paywall reinforces the perceived scarcity of t…

> You’d better believe that cost, however small, is passed along to the clients of those law firms.

This line of reasoning devolves into pure power politics. If we assume costs would always be passed down, all public taxation policy will always land at the feet of the hungry, the only people who are unable to pass on the cost. For any taxation or redistribution policy to make sense, we must agree that some amount of the cost will manifest as lower demand or slimmer margins. Some of the cost must be born by the law firm.

> My thought is that if these documents were available more freely, we would see more democratization of the legal system.

Does that actually make sense? My understanding of the legal profession and the game theory around it, is that it's a supply side constrained system. If you're being charged, and might go to jail should you fail to defend yourself, you're going to hire the absolutely most expensive lawyer you can get your hands on. It doesn't really matter if you could defend yourself, it's just not worth the risk.

Re: Court Records Should Be Free

#92

Post by thrance »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #85
BobbyTables2 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The two aren’t quite identical. The municipality could service all the homes and pay for it with taxes, probably using their own people or a negotiated contract. The private (and usually no -savvy) individual has much less negotiating power and is going to get taken to the cleaners by a plumber. Three houses in a street are likely to have 3 different plumbers on 3 different dates. It’s just like that the cost per squ…

The other side of that coin is that the homeowner is paying their own money and is therefore going to actually negotiate or shop around for the best price. Whereas the government is spending someone else's money and then the way the person choosing who to award the contract to gets to have more money in their own pocket is under the table.

Now apply that logic to healthcare. Single payers are able to get much better deals.

Re: Court Records Should Be Free

#93

Post by charcircuit »

tptacek wrote: post #42

The discourse over PACER fees recapitulates a very common public policy conundrum, and we should all be more thoughtful about discussing it. In the municipality where I live, we're statutorily required to replace lead service lines[†] within the next 5-10 years (I forget how many). The municipality replaces the trunk lines, and homeowners are required to replace the last hop at their own (significant) expense. Natura…

Hosting files is practically free in 2026. Cost is not a problem here.

Re: Court Records Should Be Free

#94

Post by IIAOPSW »

tptacek wrote: post #42

The discourse over PACER fees recapitulates a very common public policy conundrum, and we should all be more thoughtful about discussing it. In the municipality where I live, we're statutorily required to replace lead service lines[†] within the next 5-10 years (I forget how many). The municipality replaces the trunk lines, and homeowners are required to replace the last hop at their own (significant) expense. Natura…

As a non-attorney that has also used PACER, I don't think of it in quite these terms. Sure maybe there's some level of public subsidy by making it free, but like you say, relative to the legal profession that subsidy per lawyer is at the noise floor. On the other hand, the value of making it free to people outside the legal profession is well worth the degree to which we'd be subsidizing the people in it.

For example, journalists. There's enormous investigative journalism value in the documents that have been filed in court. People say all sorts of shit in affidavits which turns out to be relevant outside the context they intended it for. PACER should be free, if nothing else than for the public interest value of its content (outside as well as inside the court).

Re: Court Records Should Be Free

#95

Post by nativeit »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #85
BobbyTables2 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The two aren’t quite identical. The municipality could service all the homes and pay for it with taxes, probably using their own people or a negotiated contract. The private (and usually no -savvy) individual has much less negotiating power and is going to get taken to the cleaners by a plumber. Three houses in a street are likely to have 3 different plumbers on 3 different dates. It’s just like that the cost per squ…

The other side of that coin is that the homeowner is paying their own money and is therefore going to actually negotiate or shop around for the best price. Whereas the government is spending someone else's money and then the way the person choosing who to award the contract to gets to have more money in their own pocket is under the table.

I see this kind of argument a lot, but I have to assume the very noticeable ignorance of collective bargaining power in this framing is intentional?

Re: Court Records Should Be Free

#96

Post by nativeit »

nativeit wrote: post #95
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other side of that coin is that the homeowner is paying their own money and is therefore going to actually negotiate or shop around for the best price. Whereas the government is spending someone else's money and then the way the person choosing who to award the contract to gets to have more money in their own pocket is under the table.

I see this kind of argument a lot, but I have to assume the very noticeable ignorance of collective bargaining power in this framing is intentional?

The reason a vendor can fleece public services in the first place is, somewhat ironically, the limited access to free public records by independent journalists. I’d reckon we need more freedom of information, more regulatory oversight, and more participation by the public. The cynicism that governments are inherently dishonest and feckless (rather than being designed as-such by the self-interested lobbies pushing this cynicism) is one big reason such corruption has become so prevalent.

Re: Court Records Should Be Free

#97

Post by rootusrootus »

tptacek wrote: post #42

The discourse over PACER fees recapitulates a very common public policy conundrum, and we should all be more thoughtful about discussing it. In the municipality where I live, we're statutorily required to replace lead service lines[†] within the next 5-10 years (I forget how many). The municipality replaces the trunk lines, and homeowners are required to replace the last hop at their own (significant) expense. Natura…

The water line cost should be spread amongst whoever was allowed to vote to make it happen. If non-homeowners were allowed to force homeowners to upgrade, they can help fund it.

Re: Court Records Should Be Free

#98

Post by derektank »

qingcharles wrote: post #78
user3939382 wrote: post #30

> the public should not have to pay to read the law This goes back to Hammurabi. These decisions are the law. We pay tax dollars to create all this and even if we didn’t, if we’re held to these rulings we need to be able to read them.

Statutes are free by law. There was a case a few years ago that definitively affirmed this. A lot of counties and municipalities have zoning laws and building codes, but they don't have staff to write them, so they buy stock model codes from a corporation that writes them. These venues were then telling their citizens they couldn't give them a free copy, they had to buy them. Someone got sued for copyright infringeme…

Case law is real law in a common law system. Parent is absolutely correct to point out that without access to court records, the public does not have a complete understanding of the law. Statutes only provide you the full picture in a civil law system.

Re: Court Records Should Be Free

#99

Post by fireflash38 »

tptacek wrote: post #42

The discourse over PACER fees recapitulates a very common public policy conundrum, and we should all be more thoughtful about discussing it. In the municipality where I live, we're statutorily required to replace lead service lines[†] within the next 5-10 years (I forget how many). The municipality replaces the trunk lines, and homeowners are required to replace the last hop at their own (significant) expense. Natura…

I think there are clear benefits to having neighbors and your general community not lead poisoned.

So yeah, I think that cost should be split among the entire municipality.

I find it interesting that you have such a libertarian viewpoint on the one... But not the other. Is this not a direct government monopoly?

Re: Court Records Should Be Free

#100

Post by cucumber3732842 »

tptacek wrote: post #42

The discourse over PACER fees recapitulates a very common public policy conundrum, and we should all be more thoughtful about discussing it. In the municipality where I live, we're statutorily required to replace lead service lines[†] within the next 5-10 years (I forget how many). The municipality replaces the trunk lines, and homeowners are required to replace the last hop at their own (significant) expense. Natura…

At the very least the town could front the water/sewer project with a myriad of financial instruments and then let people pay over time, credit those who didn't need it, etc, etc. That's what they do when they actually give a crap about getting the project done. I seen it with my own eyes when they took everyone off well/septic around here.

Buuuut, that doesn't accomplish the secondary goal of incentivizing the departure of black grandma who has crappy landscaping or car part out guy or whoever else owns their own house and won't be kicked by rent but whose means and standard of living are below the vision of some snooty Chicago suburb. There's always that undertone to these sorts of things.

And if it's not that there's some local business connections that are angling for things to be structured a given way. The dirt work guy with a cousin on the board would much rather see the town force people to incur thousands of $5k jobs that he'll surely get a cut of rather than have to bid a single contract with the same or less profit that he will not necessarily win.

PACER (mostly, of course they don't want to give the public a tour of the sausage factory) isn't juggling 2nd and 3rd tier goals that are so objectionable they can't be talked about like your municipality is.

And frankly I think PACER should be free specifically to enable bulk access so that all sorts of parties can sift through it, present the data, fact check against it, perform meta analysis, etc, etc.

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