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Sponsor Statement for SB 211
Settlement Information Exemptions

An Act relating to collection of settlement information.

Under current Alaska law (AS 09.68.130) certain civil settlement information must be reported to the Alaska Judicial Council. SB 211 exempts municipal tax collection cases from this requirement.

In 1996, a report issued by the Governor's Advisory Task Force on Civil Justice Reform recommended changes to AS 09.68, Alaska Rule of Civil Procedure 41(a), and Alaska Rule of Appellate Procedure 511 to implement mandatory collection of settlement information. This report preceded HB 58, a comprehensive civil justice reform bill passed in 1997.

The intent of amending 09.68 was to collect information useful to understanding the effect of civil liability law reforms on settlement behavior.

However, information gathered in municipal tax collection settlements is of little value for the purposes of 09.68. They are not tort actions. They do not involve large monetary claims commonly found in tort actions. In the context of municipal tax collection cases, there are often dozens of defendants and relatively small claim amounts making compliance a significant administrative burden.

Collecting this information does not help in understanding the effect of the 1997 tort reforms on settlement behavior.

SB 211 will better align the application of AS 09.68.130 with its intended purpose.

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