The Judicial Council of Kansas has written a proposed amendment of Chapter 61 of K.S.A. to be introduced in the year 2000 legislature.  The proposed amendment consists of:

 (1)  a complete rewrite of Chapter 61 which if adopted will repeal the existing Chapter 61 and replace it with a new code of civil procedure for limited actions;

 (2)  a proposed supreme court rule for technical standards for electronic filing of court documents; and

 (3)  a proposed supreme court rule that will contain forms for practice under Chapter 61 to be drafted if and when the new act is passed.

The significant changes in the proposed amendment are as follows:

    A.  Any judicial district in the state may adopt a procedure for the electronic filing of court documents as long as the procedure complies with the rules of the supreme court.  A district may adopt an electronic filing procedure, or continue to accept filings in the traditional way or adopt a combination of the two systems.  Under any system adopted, paper filings will still be allowed.

    B.  The provisions of the new code will be better organized so that all similar procedures will be grouped in the same article rather than scattered throughout the entire chapter.

    C.  The jurisdictional limits for tort claims and secured claims will be increased from $10,000 to $25,000.  There is no dollar limit on unsecured contract claims which is the same as current law.

    D.  The filing of a written answer by the defendant is mandatory.

    E.  Any document which is required or allowed to be served, may be served by first class mail, fax transmission, and Internet electronic mail, in addition to existing means of service.  No default judgment may be taken if service of process is by first class mail, fax transmission or electronic mail.

    F.  The court will have the option to schedule a pretrial conference.  Default judgment or dismissal can be ordered for non-appearance by a party.  The court can enter judgment as a matter of law if there is no legal claim stated by the plaintiff or legal defense stated by the defendant.

    G.  Entry of judgment may be in a single case by a single journal entry or in more than one case by a master journal entry.

    H.  The clerk will be removed from the loop on all garnishments.  Once a garnishment order has been issued, all further communication shall be between the plaintiff and garnishee on the answer and payment of funds withheld.  The answer is not to be filed, no pay-in order of the court is necessary, and payment shall be made directly from the garnishee to the plaintiff.

    I.  Wage garnishments shall be continuing; they shall remain in effect until the judgment is paid or the garnishment is released.  If more than one judgment creditor files a wage garnishment against the same debtor, all such judgment creditors shall share pro rata in the wages withheld.  Payment is to be made automatically each month by the garnishee to all such judgment creditors.  These changes do not affect the existing exemptions on garnishment.  Even with multiple garnishments, the debtor's wages will never be garnished for more than the percentage the law currently allows.

   J.  Requests for garnishments, aids and cites can be made individually in single cases as now is done or by a master request covering more than one case.