News from the Clerk of the Circuit Court and Comptroller

News from the Clerk of the Circuit Court and Comptroller

Changes to Rule 2.420 - Part 2

Pam Childers

From January 1, 2021 to July 31, 2021 the Clerk’s office received and processed more than 144,000 requests to view electronic court records. All of these requests were received through the Clerk’s online court records viewer. Unless restricted by court rule or order, cases and filings can be seen online by anyone with internet access. A reporter from Canada, a data miner from California, or your neighbor can all make online requests to see images from court cases in Escambia County. An awareness of the accessibility of court records and the volume of requests processed is important to understanding the impact of a recent change to the rule governing the confidentiality of Court records.

The Clerk’s office last wrote about the changes to Rule 2.420 of the Florida Rules of General Practice and Judicial Administration in the spring edition of The Summation Quarterly. At the time, the proposed amendments had not yet been finalized by the Florida Supreme Court. For those who are unfamiliar, Rule 2.420 outlines 23 categories of information that are, or can be, made confidential by the Clerk in court records. Before the recent amendment, Rule 2.420 placed an independent duty on the Clerk in all cases to redact records on the list of 23 such as Social Security numbers, bank account numbers and certain health records. But, as of July 1, 2021, the Florida Supreme Court removed the Clerk’s independent duty to redact confidential information within small claims (SC), county civil (CC) and most circuit civil (CA) court cases. The changes do not affect Jimmy Ryce civil commitments, cases stemming from sexual assault and medical malpractice filings.

Rule 2.420 requires a party to file a Notice of Confidential Information Within Court Filing (the “Notice”) if a filing contains confidential information as set forth in the list of 23. For criminal cases, the Clerk will continue to review for redaction if a filing contains confidential information as set forth on the list of 23 and the filer forgets to file a Notice. For small claims, county civil and most circuit civil cases, a filer must file a Notice before the Clerk will redact or obscure any confidential information from public view. Failure to file a Notice in the civil cases referenced above will result in release of the confidential information.

While not part of the Florida Supreme Court’s recent change, it is also important to understand the difference between records made confidential or exempt pursuant to statute and records made confidential pursuant to court rule. Legislative statutes don’t control access to or the confidentiality of records of the judicial branch, unless the statute is adopted into court rule. If information made exempt or confidential pursuant only to statute is filed within a court case, Rule 2.420 requires a motion and order to redact the information from public view. The procedure for this process is laid out in detail within Rule 2.420.

Pro se parties, legal professionals and attorneys filing or practicing in civil will want to pay close attention to the recent change and their responsibility to file a Notice when filings contain confidential information as set forth on the list of 23. Pursuant to current Rule 2.420, the Clerk will not independently go through the rigorous redaction process for the affected civil cases unless the filer files a Notice.

Authored by Codey Leigh, General Counsel, on behalf of Pam Childers, Clerk of the Circuit Court and Comptroller