Case Type Designation: The New Uniform Adult Guardianship Act
Effective July 1, 2011, the Uniform Adult Guardianship and Protective Proceedings Jurisdiction Act (UAGPPJA) became law in Indiana. Under the UAGPPJA, if an out-of-state court requests assistance in a guardianship or protective proceeding, an Indiana court has jurisdiction for the limited purpose of granting the request. The assistance may range from holding an evidentiary hearing to issuing an order authorizing the release of medical, financial, criminal, or other relevant information. When a court receives a request for assistance under UAGPPJA, the clerk must assign a GU (guardianship) case designation to the case. The clerk should charge the standard GU fee because the relief sought is analogous to an in-state guardianship proceeding.
Confidentiality of Summons in Mortgage Foreclosure Cases
New legislation for mortgage foreclosure (MF) cases requires that the debtor’s address on the summons must be confidential under some circumstances. [I.C. 32-30-10.5-8(d)] If a creditor files an action to foreclose a mortgage, the debtor’s mailing address must be omitted from the summons if “the last known mailing address of the debtor (on the creditor’s records)…is other than the address of the mortgaged property.” [I.C. 32-30-10.5-8(b)(2)]
Such a last known mailing address is declared by the new legislation to be confidential under I.C. 5-14-3-4(a)(13). Because this address must be used on the summons, Indiana’s green paper rule, which governs the treatment of confidential information, requires that it be omitted from the summons and set forth on a separate accompanying document on light green paper. [Ind. Trial Rule 5(G)(2)] This separate accompanying document can be provided to the sheriff and returned to the confidential file following service. Clerks should now advise creditors filing MF cases to follow the green paper rule submit the summons on green paper when the last known mailing address of the debtor on the creditor’s records is not the address of the mortgaged property.
New Chapters Added to Administrative Manual
Three new chapters have been added to the Indiana Trial Court and Clerks’ Administrative Manual. The first two deal with requests concerning criminal records: Expungement of Adult Arrest Records and Juvenile Records and Restricting Access to Certain Criminal History Records. Although the Expungement chapter does not break new ground, the chapter on restricting access to certain criminal records concerns the authority of courts to limit access to criminal history information as a result of the passage of Public Law 194 in the 2011 session of the Indiana General Assembly. Please see the article addressing this legislation in this issue of Court Times. A third new chapter, Protocol for Transfer of Records When Court Abolished, explains procedures to follow when courts of record are abolished.