The Committee on Judiciary was called to order at 8:00 a.m., on Tuesday, April 27, 1999. Chairman Bernie Anderson presided in Room 3138 of the Legislative Building, Carson City, Nevada. Exhibit A is the Agenda. Exhibit B is the Guest List. All Exhibits are available and on file at the Research Library of the Legislative Counsel Bureau.

COMMITTEE MEMBERS PRESENT:

Mr. Bernie Anderson, Chairman

Mr. Mark Manendo, Vice Chairman

Ms. Sharron Angle

Mr. Greg Brower

Ms. Barbara Buckley

Mr. Jerry Claborn

Mr. Tom Collins

Mr. Don Gustavson

Mrs. Ellen Koivisto

Ms. Sheila Leslie

Ms. Kathy McClain

Mr. Dennis Nolan

Ms. Genie Ohrenschall

COMMITTEE MEMBERS ABSENT:

Mr. John Carpenter

STAFF MEMBERS PRESENT:

OTHERS PRESENT:

Judge Gene Porter, District Judge, Eighth Judicial District Court

Judge Mark Gibbons, District Judge, Eighth Judicial District Court

Judge Norman Robinson, Senior District Court Judge, Ninth Judicial

District Court

Renny Ashleman, Representative, Nevada Government Relations

Judge Mark Denton, District Court Judge, Eighth Judicial District Court

Judge Michael Cherry, District Court Judge, Eighth Judicial District

Rich Myers, Past President, Nevada Trial Lawyers Association

Wesley Ayres, Discovery Commissioner, Second Judicial District

Bob Crowell, Representative, Farmers Insurance Company

Joseph Guild, Representative, State Farm Insurance Company

Theresa Bedoy, Representative, AllState Insurance Company

John Vergiels, Representative, Nevada General Insurance Company,

Robert Feldman, Representative, Nevada General Insurance Company Scott Anderson, Counsel, Secretary of State’s Office

John Fowler, Chairman, Business Law Section, State Bar of Nevada

NOTE: This meeting was teleconferenced to Las Vegas.

Following roll call, Chairman Anderson opened the hearing on S.B. 315.

Judge Mark Gibbons, district judge, Eighth Judicial District, testified in support of S.B. 315. He explained the reason for the bill was the problems in the Eighth Judicial District Court with various requests for trial de novo. When the Nevada arbitration rules had been adopted a number of years ago, rule 2a of those rules provided a simplified procedure to obtain a fair and equitable resolution of certain civil matters. It had been found those small civil matters were not resolved on the arbitration level and requests for trial de novo were frequent. Although a party had a constitutional right to do so, the courts found in many cases there had not first been meaningful participation in the arbitration process. S.B. 315 would allow an arbitration award to be read to a jury, which might make the parties take the arbitration process more seriously. The constitutionality issue was examined and the Nevada Supreme Court had ruled to advise a jury of findings of a panel in medical malpractice cases. Judge Gibbons said S.B. 315 was analogous to that ruling. He provided the committee with a written copy of his testimony (Exhibit C.)

Judge Gibbons said critics of S.B. 315 commented the bill would make the arbitration take longer and would require more witnesses. His response to that was the arbitration process was adopted to resolve problems and the argument promulgated above was not valid. Judge Gibbons gave the committee statistics compiled by an insurance company (Exhibit D) regarding trial de novo.

Assemblyman Brower said he thought there was a rule which provided if a party was found to not have engaged in the arbitration process in good faith, a request for a trial de novo could be denied or stricken. Judge agreed that was the case. However, the question was what constituted good faith. District court judges around the state had different opinions of what that meant.

Judge Gene Porter, district judge, Eighth Judicial District Court, explained S.B. 315 was brought forward to assure the arbitration process would be taken seriously, and thereby would remove a great deal of time-consuming cases from the courts.

Judge Porter read language of a Nevada Supreme Court decision concerning the constitutionality of Nevada Revised Statute 41A.069, contained in 111 Nv. 1496, page 1502 (Exhibit E), which he explained was the exact same language contained in S.B. 315.

Judge Porter continued statistics of parties who requested trial de novo showed an average of 62.5 percent won their case. The average time between arbitration and a case coming to trial was 22 months in Clark County. Judge Porter concluded the Senate passed S.B. 315 unanimously.

Chairman Anderson said a big plus to arbitration was that rules of evidence were not quite as stringent as under regular circumstances. He wondered if that broader scope would preclude information from being introduced at the court level. Judge Porter responded the system was designed to be simple and quick. As it evolved people took it seriously, but at present people seemed to have the attitude of not caring what the result of arbitration might be and tended to file a request for trial de novo. He encouraged the committee to either put teeth into the arbitration process or get rid of it.

Assemblyman Gustavson asked in reference to page 2, subsection 2a, why the arbitrator findings must be admitted to trial but any other evidence concerning arbitration must not be admitted to trial. Judge Gibbons replied the reason was that the statute paralleled Nevada Revised Statute 41A.069. At the time of trial both parties had a right to introduce any evidence they chose so the judgement of the arbitrator was not conclusive upon the jury. There was no restriction on evidence. At the time of trial evidence had to comply with the Nevada evidence code regarding admissibility.

Assemblyman Brower commented there was a rule that if a case was arbitrated and then taken to trial, the loser in that trial could be made to pay sanctions of up to $3,000. He asked, in looking for a way to resolve the perceived problem in the southern Nevada area, whether the judges had considered a stronger disincentive for abuse by virtue of a larger amount. Judge Porter agreed $3,000 in sanctions did not deter anyone. He was not a great fan of sanctions; he did not find them effective. What was effective was to tell the jury the findings of an arbitration hearing.

Assemblywoman Koivisto asked if a party to a dispute knew a settlement offer might be entered into evidence, might they not be afraid to make that offer, and if an arbitration finding was adverse, would not the parties involved again be discouraged from entering into arbitration.

Judge Porter replied the arbitration program was mandatory. There was a monetary cap of $40,000 as well as a petition to exempt from arbitration. Disputes over title to real property and cases which exceeded the monetary threshold did not go to arbitration. The discovery commissioner made the determination whether a case went to arbitration. The facts of offers or compromise were not admissible under the evidence code.

Judge Gibbons added under the Nevada Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 68 any party could make an offer of judgement on a case which did not come before the trier of fact. Courts encouraged parties to do so, but the judge or a jury did not know those offers.

Judge Norman Robinson, senior district court judge, Ninth Judicial District Court, testified in support of S.B. 315. Judge Robinson said he had been sitting as a senior judge in Las Vegas for about 6 months, and he recognized requests for trial de novo as a big problem. He saw several of those requests every week and the system was definitely being abused. Active participation was necessary on the part of both parties to an arbitration hearing, and that was not happening.

Renny Ashleman, representative, Nevada Government Relations, told the committee he was co-chair to a committee the Supreme Court had established to improve the process of arbitration. He participated in the plan as an arbitrator. He said what was done at the Supreme Court level had not been adequate to solve the problems. Every one of his cases had been appealed. Mr. Ashleman said he was not a liberal, he was middle of the road, and yet he encountered the attitude of "let’s get this hearing over with so we can get on with our appeal." He said the parties did want to skirt a little bit being found in bad faith, but they did not work very hard at it. There either had to be a way to fix the problem or double the number of judges.

Judge Michael Cherry, district court judge, Eighth Judicial District, testified in support of S.B. 315. He said he had been involved in the arbitration process at the beginning. The cap at that time was $15,000 and involved auto accidents, and the process seemed to work. The cap was then raised to $25,000 and included all civil cases. It was then raised to $40,000 and for a while the process still worked.

Judge Cherry said he had been a popular arbitrator, and spent a lot of time laboring over his decisions. He said he was a fan of the right to jury trial. He would never take the right to trial de novo away. However, he felt the situation had deteriorated to where the program was not working. The arbitration process as it was a waste of judicial resources. He said he was on the medical screening panel for a number of years and the panel worked well. He had also seen it in practice as a judge, but help was needed to free up judges for more serious cases.

Judge Mark Denton, district court judge, Eighth Judicial District Court, testified in support of S.B. 315. He echoed the feelings expressed by the previous speakers. He said the arbitration process should be the forum to resolve a dispute in the first instance. The problem was people went through the motions of arbitration. Judge Denton said S.B. 315 seemed a reasonable measure to take.

Rich Myers, past president, Nevada Trial Lawyers Association, spoke in support of S.B. 315. He said the public perception of civil litigation was too expensive and took too much time. That was particularly true in smaller and simpler cases. Alternative dispute resolution first became popular 15 or 20 years ago. Arbitration was the most popular and widespread form of alternative dispute resolution. Arbitration was mandatory, but not binding. If a person did not like the result of arbitration, he or she could file a request for trial de novo.

Mr. Myers told the committee there was a group of "professional defendants", being the insurance companies, in civil litigation cases. Most of those cases involved automobile accidents. In Nevada, said Mr. Myers, when a civil suit was filed, depending on the judge and department, most trial dates were extended 2 years. In Clark County, arbitration took about 9 months.

The four largest insurance carriers in Nevada were Triple A, Allstate, State Farm, and Farmers. As a national policy, such insurance companies had decided not to take alternative dispute resolution seriously, to refuse to look at each case on its merits, and to file de novo motions in each and every arbitration. That strategy was designed to push the plaintiff’s case further out of reach.

Mr. Myers said he had served as an arbitrator and had perceived the parties did not take the process seriously. His opinion was that about 70 percent of the civil trial calendar involved arbitration appeals. The organized plaintiffs’ trial bar supported S.B. 315 as a very important step in supporting justice.

In anticipation of arguments, Mr. Myers said opponents would say they were working with trial lawyers toward a 1-day jury trial concept, which would not work. It would require a stipulation of both sides and if that did not happen, the concept was ineffective. Another point which would be made in opposition to S.B. 315 was the protestation that jury trials brought in awards under that of the arbitration board. The way that was being done was through the fact that many people dropped their cases over the course of a lengthy wait. They experienced financial difficulties, had major lifestyle changes, or for another reason could not wait for almost 3 years for a jury trial. Those people were forced to accept "discount justice" from the insurance companies. The insurance companies had the ability to settle "on the courthouse steps" and did, in cases they might lose.

Mr. Myers said that left the cases the insurance companies were most likely to win. Into those cases the insurance companies put an inordinate amount of expense money. Expert witnesses were called by the insurance companies which the injured parties could not afford to refute.

Mr. Myers discussed one of his cases which involved an Allstate claim which he said was a case of full-scale arbitration and was still under submission. From the time the arbitrator held the hearing until the present moment, an exchange of correspondence (Exhibit F) took place, which showed a prime example of the abuse of the arbitration process.

Mr. Myers said S.B. 315 would put teeth into the arbitration process but would not deprive people of their right to trial by jury. He urged the committee to support S.B. 315.

Wesley Ayres, discovery commissioner, Second Judicial District, testified in opposition to S.B. 315. Mr. Ayres told the committee (Exhibit G) the Second Judicial District Court was not experiencing the problems with trial de novo to which other testimony referred. His department averaged about six trials de novo per year. Mr. Ayres said he had discussed the problem with the arbitration commissioners in the First and Ninth Judicial Districts and had been told the problem did not exist in those jurisdictions. The Second Judicial District Court opposed S.B. 315 for the following reasons:

• Trial De Novo requests were not a problem in Northern Nevada.
• An arbitrator’s decision was not evidence.
• A jury should never be told about an improper arbitration decision.
• A jury could not fairly assess an arbitration decision without knowing its basis.
• The right to a trial de novo was impaired if the jury heard the arbitrator’s decision.
• Arbitration was intended to assist parties in settling cases, not to coerce them into abandoning their right to a jury trial.
• The arbitration process differed substantially from the Medical-Legal Screening Panel.
• Instructing the jury about the arbitrator’s decision would increase costs and delays.
• Instructing the jury about the arbitrator’s decision would increase the burden upon the arbitrators.
• S.B. 315 would not decrease trial de novo requests.
• S.B. 315 would not decrease abuse of the arbitration program.

Judge Ayres said testimony had been given that the arbitration process used to work and did so no longer. It was necessary to determine why it no longer worked. If S.B. 315 passed, said Judge Ayres, he requested the committee please not make S.B. 315 apply to the Second Judicial District Court.

Chairman Anderson wondered if Judge Ayres felt the arbitration program should be dissolved. He asked if the arbitration program served the function for which it was designed. Judge Ayres replied in Washoe County it did serve that function. Chairman Anderson stated that was clearly not so in the southern part of the state. He understood the judge was concerned about misapplication of the law from arbiters. Judge Ayres said he did not mean that arbitrators frequently misapplied the law. The arbitrators were the backbone of the system, and did their work voluntarily.

Chairman Anderson asked how S.B. 315 required the jury to utilize the arbitration verdict. He did not feel the bill limited the jury in their search for the truth. Mr. Ayres responded the requirement was that the jury be told about an arbitration decision. He understood the jury was technically free to regard or disregard the decision as it saw fit. Proponents of S.B. 315 hoped the jury would do exactly as did the arbitrator. Mr. Ayres saw that as an improper goal.

Chairman Anderson commented the entire reason for the Medical Legal Screening Panel was to cut down the workload of the courts and the number of frivolous lawsuits. Mr. Ayres replied he had no opposition to the Medical Legal Screening Panel, his point was it was totally different from the arbitration program. Chairman Anderson said he did not see the difference. He asked if the arbitration process was simply a time-consuming tactic or whether the program worked. Mr. Ayres replied he had heard from both sides of the debate that the program worked. Washoe County had no problem with the process.

Assemblywoman Buckley asked Mr. Ayres if he was the arbitration commissioner in southern Nevada, would his position change. Mr. Ayres responded he knew the arbitration commissioner in Clark County and if he sat in that place his approach would be to do more analysis. He did not know what discussions took place in southern Nevada prior to those judges endorsing S.B. 315. His concern was why the problem was there. He was not persuaded anyone had asked that question. Assemblywoman Buckley stated she was offended by the testimony of Mr. Ayres. He said he had not taken the time to find out if the other arbitrators or judges had ascertained the problem, and yet he shot holes in the bill. She commented she expected that people in the system cared about problems the entire State of Nevada had and worked together on them.

Mr. Ayres apologized for making Assemblywoman Buckley feel that way. He had stated at the beginning of his testimony if the bill was amended to leave the Eighth Judicial District out of it, he had no problem with it.

Chairman Anderson responded the committee would prefer a single solution. He believed if Clark County had a problem it was a statewide problem, since Clark County had 70 percent of the population of the state, whereas if there was a problem in another part of the state, it was a local problem. He said he strongly believed the arbitration process was an opportunity to cut down on court calendars and expressed concern that process would somehow be jeopardized.

Assemblywoman Leslie asked what the position of the Second Judicial District Court was in regard to S.B. 315 since she heard Mr. Ayres testify they were against the bill, yet she had a letter (Exhibit H) from Judge Brent Adams of that district court which expressed strong support. Mr. Ayres said the position of that court was opposition to the bill as currently drafted. He continued that Judge Adams had a different viewpoint, much as individual committee memebers might have. The only judge of which Mr. Ayres knew who had written a letter of support was Judge Adams. Judge Charles McGee of that court had reaffirmed that Mr. Ayres was speaking on behalf of the Second Judicial District Court. Assemblywoman Leslie asked if Mr. Ayres knew of any other state which had experienced the same problems addressed in S.B. 315 or whether any other state had implemented a solution. She also asked if any other state had found the solution proposed in S.B. 315 to be unconstitutional. Mr. Ayres said he was not aware of any other state which had the problem, implemented the solution, or found it to be unconstitutional to do so. He had heard theories from attorneys that the problem was experienced in the Eighth Judicial District and not others because of the size of the district. One would expect to see similar problems in larger cities such as Los Angeles or Seattle.

Bob Crowell, representative, Farmers Insurance Company, testified in opposition to S.B. 315. He commented that to declare a party’s use of the judicial system as abuse was offensive. S.B. 315 was based on the medical malpractice statute in the Nevada Revised Statute. S.B. 315 was presented as having passed 21 to 0 in the Senate, which was correct. Another bill, S.B. 479, which dealt with medical malpractice, also passed 21 to 0 in the Senate. Page 2 of S.B. 479 stated if the screening panel found it was unable to reach a decision on the issue of medical malpractice the written findings of the screening panel were not admissible in any action concerning the complaint which was subsequently filed in a district court.

Mr. Crowell provided the committee a 1999 report (Exhibit I) from the Nevada Supreme Court respecting alternative dispute resolution. The final sentence in that report stated although the court was considering amendments to several of the arbitration rules, they had no specific recommendations for legislation at the time.

Mr. Crowell said if S.B. 315 was passed, jury trials would become mere validations of arbitration decisions. As Judge Porter had commented, if S.B. 315 passed, either the arbitration system or the jury trial system might as well be done away with, since they were mutually exclusive. According to Mr. Crowell, S.B. 315 would make a mandatory nonbinding arbitration program mandatory and binding. Page 2 of S.B. 315 addressed jury instructions which Mr. Crowell interpreted to mean any money awarded in arbitration meant the person who got that award had a decision in their favor. In arbitration proceedings where an amount of money was in dispute, a lesser award might mean the insurance company won, even though there was some monetary award issued.

Mr. Crowell said southern Nevada had a problem, either with greedy insurance companies or an arbitration program that was not working. He did not think statistics regarding jury trials could be used to determine they were an abuse of the system.

Joseph Guild, representative, State Farm Insurance Company, spoke in opposition to S.B. 315. Mr. Guild said he was a court-appointed arbitrator, of which he was very proud. He took his duties very seriously and considered the position a service to the public and the state bar.

Mr. Guild said the basic rule of evidence was that all evidence that was relevant was admissible. A large body of statutes had been developed from old English common law and 200 years of experience in the United States. The constitution guaranteed a right to trial by jury in civil actions. Nevada Revised Statute 48.035(1) provided an exception to the relevant evidence rule. That statute stated that some evidence, even though relevant, was not admissible if it would be unfairly prejudicial or would mislead the jury. Despite instructions contained in S.B. 315 Mr. Guild felt such evidence would mislead a jury and thus result in the right to trial by jury being attacked.

Mr. Guild said proponents of the bill would have the committee believe the Medical Legal Screening Panel statute in Nevada Revised Statute 41A.069 mirrored language of instructions in S.B. 315. Such was not the case. The Medical Legal Screening Panel heard evidence and made a determination whether there was a reasonable probability of medical malpractice before a case was filed in medical malpractice. An arbitrator decided the entire case and determined the award. There was no comparison between the two procedures.

Mr. Guild said State Farm insurance had 14 arbitration cases in Washoe County during 1998. State Farm requested 2 trials de novo. Plaintiffs requested 2 trials de novo. In Clark County State Farm had 32 arbitrations. Plaintiffs requested 9 trials de novo; State Farm requested 7 trials de novo. It was not a national policy of the insurance companies to not take arbitration seriously.

Mr. Guild stated short trials should be given consideration as an alternative solution to the problem. He felt arbitrators should be required to get continuing education in judicial matters. He also felt S.B. 315 was a quick fix that would not solve the problem and there should be further study of the entire matter.

Theresa Bedoy, representative, AllState Insurance Company, testified in opposition to S.B. 315. She presented a document (Exhibit J) which was a motion to a district court in Las Vegas in opposition to an argument made by Allstate counsel. Allstate opposed S.B. 315 as prejudicial and biased.

Assemblyman Gustavson asked if the problem was more serious in Clark County because more fraudulent claims were filed there. Ms. Bedoy responded she could not speculate as to the problem, but it was the only place she had experienced the problem on a regular basis.

Robert Feldman, representative, Nevada General Insurance Company, testified in opposition to S.B. 315. Mr. Feldman gave the committee a packet (Exhibit K) which showed laws in 13 states that specifically prohibited the action proposed in S.B. 315. He felt there was a constitutionality problem with the bill. The second document in the packet addressed arbitration appeals in Arizona, while the final document pertained to arbitration statistics. Mr. Feldman said Arizona experienced the same problems with arbitration, as did Nevada. A California judge had told Mr. Feldman that 85 percent of the arbitration cases in that state were appealed from mandatory arbitration.

John Vergiels, representative, Nevada General Insurance Company, testified in opposition to S.B. 315. He stated with the discrepancies between arbitration and jury awards, the problems would not go away because it meant dollars to the insurance companies and a lack of dollars to attorneys. S.B. 315 was not the answer, but from a legislative viewpoint it might be worth a try.

Chairman Anderson informed the committee there was such a great deal of information regarding S.B. 315 that there could be no action at the present time.

Chairman Anderson closed the hearing on S.B. 315 and opened the hearing on S.B. 453.

Risa Lang, committee counsel, explained S.B. 453 was a ratification bill (Exhibit L.) Ms. Lang explained each session bills which were passed were codified and put into statutes. They were then published in the Nevada Revised Statutes. During that process various technical corrections were made to make the statutes functional during the interim. Many changes were necessary due to certain nonsubstantive conflicts were not resolved during the legislative session. Often that happened toward the end of session, and the legislative counsel agreed to resolve those conflicts during codification rather than require amendments that would slow down the legislative process. Article 4, section 17, of the Nevada Constitution required all changes made to a particular section of a statute be shown in one place. None of the changes were substantive; they were all technical in nature. Approval of S.B. 453 would acknowledge the legislature agreed with choices made by the legislative counsel during the interim.

Assemblyman Gustavson expressed concern about section 61, page 189, which appeared to be the same language as was already in chapter 19 of the Nevada Revised Statutes. Ms. Lang responded all the changes were already in statute. S.B. 453 was simply a ratification of what had already been done.

Assemblyman Gustavson asked about the section which dealt with the welfare reform bill that required social security numbers on certain documents. He wondered if those documents had been missed in the original measure or if they were new documents. Ms. Lang reiterated the changes were primarily done to resolve conflicts and to make sure everything worked during the interim.

ASSEMBLYMAN MANENDO MOVED TO DO PASS S.B. 453.

ASSEMBLYMAN CLAYBORN SECONDED THE MOTION.

THE MOTION PASSED.

ASSEMBLYMAN MANENDO MOVED TO PLACE S.B. 453 ON THE CONSENT CALENDAR.

SECONDED BY ASSEMBLYMAN CLAYBORN

MOTION PASSED.

Chairman Anderson closed the hearing on S.B. 453 and opened the hearing on S.B. 61.

John Fowler, chairman, Business Law Section, State Bar of Nevada, told the committee since 1993 the state bar had provided for consideration by the legislature changes statutes dealing with corporations, limited liability companies, and other business matters. In 1999, the Secretary of State’s Office, which had bills they were seeking to introduce, got together with the state bar and created S.B. 61.

Mr. Fowler presented materials (Exhibit M) which described sections of S.B. 61. He explained how certain parts of the bill would affect the way business people filed and created entities for doing business.

Chairman Anderson said he was concerned that S.B. 61 might affect the ability of the regulatory side of the Gaming Control Board to look at the corporate structure and stockholders of a corporation engaged in gaming. Mr. Fowler assured the committee S.B. 61 would not have any effect on the Gaming Control Board at all.

Chairman Anderson asked about foreign corporations. Mr. Fowler explained a foreign corporation was any out-of-state corporation, and if all a foreign corporation did was hold property in Nevada, it did not have to qualify to do business. If the property was leased out or if a corporation developed or foreclosed on property, it would have to qualify. A resident agent had to reside in Nevada. Apparently some resident agents tried to use a post office box.

Mr. Fowler explained many of the changes in S.B. 61 were fairly technical and made changes usually to solve problems with existing statutes.

Assemblyman Claborn asked if S.B. 61 would guarantee a resident agent had to have a physical address. Mr. Fowler assured the Assemblyman such was the case.

Scott Anderson, counsel, Secretary of State’s Office, said the secretary of state supported S.B. 61. He explained the bill-combined provisions in both the bills from the Nevada Bar Association and from the secretary of state.

Assemblyman Gustavson questioned the fee schedule in section 51, page 16, of S.B. 61. He asked how those fees compared with fees for filing of corporations Mr. Fowler replied the fees were intended to be identical with the exception that when a corporation had a great many shares of stock, the filing fees went up on a sliding scale. Because business trusts did not issue stock the fee was $125.00. Other than that exception, all fees were the same. Assemblyman Gustavson asked if there was a termination fee for corporations in the present law. Mr. Fowler said there was none for corporations as such, but there were fees for termination of business trusts.

Assemblyman Gustavson asked if page 38, section 89, raised current fees from $75 to $125. Mr. Fowler replied that increase was to bring fees for merger documents level with other amendatory documents.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN LESLIE MOVED TO DO PASS S.B. 61.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN OHRENSCHALL SECONDED THE MOTION.

THE MOTION PASSED. ASSEMBLYMEN ANGLE AND GUSTAVSON VOTED NO.

Chairman Anderson closed the hearing on S.B. 61 and opened the hearing on S.B. 62.

Chairman Anderson reminded the committee they had heard S.B. 62 in a prior meeting. The committee had been furnished with a document (Exhibit N) by legislative staff which summarized the Uniform Commercial Code. Chairman Anderson asked for a motion on the bill.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN OHRENSCHALL MOVED TO DO PASS AND PLACE S.B. 62 ON THE CONSENT CALENDAR.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN MCCLAIN SECONDED THE MOTION.

THE MOTION PASSED.

There being no further business before the committee, Chairman Anderson adjourned the hearing at 11:20 a.m.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED:

Lois McDonald,

Transcription Secretary

Novella Watson-Lee

Committee Secretary

APPROVED BY:

Assemblyman Bernie Anderson, Chairman

DATE: