Ohio

Ohio Court Costs and Filing Fees Committee Issues Recommendations

By Cleveland Law Library

Ohio's Joint Committee to Study Court Costs and Filing Fees has issued its report with both general comments on the use of the terms "costs" and "fees" in the Ohio Revised Code, as well as specific recommendations for reform. The Ohio Supreme Court's Press Release summarizes some of the general recommendations, but the report itself indicates that the committee had 11 specific recommendations: 1) "Court costs should be reasonable, nominal and directly related to the operation and maintenance of the court" but not a source of "income" or to fund "special programs"; 2) disbursements of court costs are complex and taxing for clerks, increasing costs makes collections of costs and court-imposed fines harder, and the ORC should make it easier to find applicable costs; 3) courts should be allowed to charge more than $10.00 per filing to computerize their clerk's offices; 4) probate fees should be increased to reflect inflation; 5) trial courts should be allowed to suspend costs for indigents after sentencing; 6) "special project" costs are fine but need clarified under the ORC; 7) courts should be allowed to declare debts uncollectible and remove them from their books; 8) courts should keep all of the funds they tax as costs; 9) courts should assess costs per case, not based on the number counts in a case; 10) there should be a study of how criminal fines are collected and disbursed; and 11) court costs and fees should be continually reviewed. The implementation of recommendations 9 and 10 could affect the funding for the Cleveland Law Library, which receives funding from traffic and liquor fines pursuant to ORC Chapter 3375.48 et seq. Item 9 was the subject of a recent 8th District Court of Appeals Case captioned Middleburg Hts. v. Quinones, 2007-Ohio-3643. The foregoing Committee was created as part of HB 336 from the 126th General Assembly.

Full post as published by Cleveland Law Library Weblog on July 15, 2008 (boomark / email).