Assembly Standing Committee on Judiciary

Good afternoon. Welcome to Assembly Judicial Committee. Madam secretary, if you can establish quorum, please.

Carl Roth?

Here.

Masito? Here. Mara Kehan? Here. Brian Connolly?

Here.

Harrison? Here. Perbidian? Here. Pacheco?

Papan? Sanchez? Stephanie? Here. Seberg?

Alright.

A quorum is established. We have a motion and a second. Assemblymember Connolly, whenever you're ready.

Thank you. I can take a hint. Proud to present AB 540, a straightforward bill to address issues currently found in civil law and improve access for everyone involved. The goal of this bill is to resolve three related issues in California civil practice to promote clarity, efficiency, and protection of litigant's privacy. First, current law adds a two-year court extension to respond to notice motions served electronically or e-Service.

E-Service has been allowed for over twenty-five-years, but its technology has evolved. Confusion about calculating response deadlines for motions served electronically remain. AB 540 simply clarifies that e-Service of certain motions does not trigger additional time applicable to other methods of service, eliminating unnecessary confusion. Second, SB 37, passed last year, created additional enforcement to ensure that referral services are operating as intended and compliant with law that requires them to be certified with the State Bar.

However, questions have been raised if SB 37 also applied to attorney referrals.

AB 540 makes clear that attorneys actively representing clients are not operating a lawyer referral service merely because, incidental to their practice, they refer a potential client to another attorney when the matter falls outside their expertise, exceeds their capacity, or does not meet their criteria for representation. Third, when requesting medical records in a case, oftentimes, entire medical histories are transferred to the opposing party despite specific requests that reflect the extent of the injuries in a case.

This can cause embarrassment and even fear tactics with sensitive health information concerning reproductive health, sexual history, psychiatric care, and addiction treatment. AB 540 creates a voluntary first-look procedure which allows sensitive records to be reviewed for privacy and relevance before they are provided to the requesting party. First-look agreements are already allowed under current law.

This bill simply creates a template that can be used and edited only when stipulated to by all parties involved. The language, in this bill, has been carefully negotiated and reviewed over two years to improve civil procedure in California. And I would like to thank all the parties involved in coming up with this agreement, working in good faith and together. And on that note, with me to testify is Saveena Takhar with Consumer Attorneys of California and Mike Belote on behalf of California Defense Counsel.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mister Chair and members. Mike Belote on behalf of the California Defense Council. I'll handle the first-look issue. Saveena will handle the lawyer referral service. We did work very hard on this, and I think it's a good product.

It's a real problem. Health care providers often send out the entire file that we subpoena, and it can include things that have nothing to do with the injury. It could be a slip and fall, and you break your ankle in the gynecological records or mental health records. And I understand healthcare providers are there to do healthcare. They don't parse through records as a business practice.

So this is something that we are going to try. It is in use now with lawyers who trust each other. But this puts a template in place, and I think it's a good product and worth a try. And then we'll go from there and see how it works. For that, we'd ask for an aye vote.

Thank you.

Saveena Takhar with the Consumer Attorneys of California. Just to add on the first look piece, thank you to the Committee for your analysis, and thank you for, you know, mentioning of the voluntary nature and that we're happy to do any clarifying changes next year if that's necessary, but we did intend it to be fully voluntary. On the referral services piece, I wanna thank the State Bar because they work very closely with us to make sure that we're crafting the language to only cover attorney to attorney referrals.

So, essentially, we wanna make sure that the referral practice still continues, that you don't want someone handling a case and that's not their expertise. That's all the language does.

So we would appreciate your support. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there anyone else here in support of AB 540? Is there anyone here in opposition to AB 540? Well, we already have a motion on the table. Any further questions or comments?

Assemblymember Zbur.

So first of all, I wanna thank the author for this. I think it really strikes the right balance. It's really important that we protect some of the sensitive information, which we know is really at risk. And, you know, I've got another bill that's sort of quasi in the same space. But, just wanna thank you and your sponsors for working on this.

I think it's really a terrific outcome.

Thanks. Appreciate it.

Thank you. Any other questions or comments? We already have a motion. Yep. We're ready to go.

Assemblymember, thank you so much as well for bringing this forward. I think, let's see how this goes. It looks like it's, at least on a voluntary basis, it's been working well, and let's see how this kind of pseudo-pilot works. And I imagine it'll be effective and protective of people's health care records. Would you like to close?

Thank you. Respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you.

Motion is to concur. Kalra.

Kalra, Aye. Macedo.

Macedo, aye. Bauer-Kahan. Bryan. Connolly.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Connolly, aye. Dixon.

Dixon, aye. Harabedian.

Aye.

Aye.

Pacheco, aye. Papan.

Harabedian, aye. Pacheco.

Aye.

Aye.

Papan, aye. Sanchez.

Aye.

Stefani, aye. Zbur.

Sanchez, aye. Stefani.

Aye.

Zbur, aye.

Right. That bill is out.

Bauer-Kahan?

Bauer-Kahan, aye. Bryan.

Open the roll.

Aye.

We'll open the roll.

Bryan.

Aye.

Brian, aye.

That bill is out, and we're adjourned.