Electronic Filing System For Courts Sent To Gov. Snyder

LANSING – Five of the six bills creating an electronic filing system for courts and assigning fees were sent to Governor Rick Snyder on Tuesday.

SB 531, SB 532 and SB 533 cleared the House 100-6, 97-8 and 98-8, respectively. The Senate then concurred in House changes sending the bills to Snyder.

HB 5028, HB 5029 and HB 5030 passed the Senate on Tuesday unanimously. The House only needs to concur in changes to HB 5029 to send the full package to Snyder.

The Michigan Senate bills develop the Judicial Electronic Filing Fund further and allow the public to view electronically filed documents on site free of charge.

The House bills create the e-filing system and outline the fees and specify the fees would go to the Judicial Electronic Filing Fund.

Under the bills a person who is found unable to pay the filing fees would be able to get them waived, otherwise the following fees apply:

$25 in the Supreme Court, Court of Appeals, Court of Claims, circuit court and probate court;

$20 in district court if a claim for relief is both monetary and nonmonetary;

$5 in small claims court; and

$10 in district court if the preceding two instances do not apply, including actions for summary proceedings.

AVIATION FUEL CHANGES: The House also passed aviation fuel changes (SB 418, SB 425, SB 426, SB 612, SB 613 and SB 614), which would dedicate 2 percent of the sales tax on aviation fuel with to aviation purposes and split those funds, as well as the current 3 cents per gallon tax, between the Aeronautics Fund, overseen by the Aeronautics Commission, and the Qualified Airport Fund, which provides for capital projects at certain airports.