Settlement Reached to Provide Pacer Fee Refunds
Users of the U.S. judiciary's Public Access to Court Electronic Records (Pacer) system could see full refunds of fees paid to access federal court documents, according to a settlement agreement among three nonprofits and the federal judiciary submitted to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The terms of the settlement set aside $125 million to establish a common fund to automatically reimburse more than 400,000 Pacer class users up to $350 for any fees paid April 21, 2010, to May 31, 2018. Users who paid over $350 during that period will receive a pro rata share of the remaining settlement funds, the proposed settlement said (National Veterans Legal Services Program v. U.S., D.D.C. #16-00745).
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The case was originally brought in 2016 by the National Veterans Legal Services Program, the National Consumer Law Center and Alliance for Justice, which argued the judiciary violated the law by charging fees that went beyond the cost for providing the records. The Pacer system charges 10 cents a page for most court documents with a $3 cap on each record retrieved. Court opinions and decisions are free.
The refunds will be distributed to class members, including individual users, companies, academics and members of the media, if the settlement is ordered. A federal appeals court previously ruled that the charges are higher than needed to run the system, limiting fees to the amount needed to cover the cost of providing access via the Pacer system.
"By any measure, this litigation has been an extraordinary achievement -- and even more so given the odds stacked against it," the settlement said. "PACER fees have long been the subject of widespread criticism because they thwart equal access to justice and inhibit public understanding of the courts. But until this case was filed, litigation wasn’t seen as a realistic path to reform." The House last month passed a bill that would eliminate Pacer fees (see 2209290048).