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Judge certifies class in lawsuit challenging PACER fees

A lawsuit alleging that the federal court system substantially overcharges for online access to dockets and documents was certified as a class action Tuesday by a federal judge.

U.S. District Court Judge Ellen Huvelle said in an opinion she will allow anyone who paid so-called PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records) fees between April 2010 and April 2016 to be part of the class in the suit, which alleges that the government is violating a 2002 law that says fees for using the system should not exceed the costs to operate it.

The federal courts charge 10 cents a page for docket searches and most documents downloaded online, other than opinions. The charges paid by attorneys, law firms, non-profit groups and journalists brought in $145 million in fees for the court system in 2015, a sum which some judges say is being used to subsidize other costs.

Nearly all such users could be in line for partial refunds if the suit were to be successful.

The suit was filed by law firms Gupta Wessler, Motley Rice and the Institute for Public Representation on behalf of the National Veterans Legal Services Program, National Consumer Law Center and the Alliance for Justice.

Last month, Huvelle rejected the government's bid to dismiss the case. The Washington-based judge has yet to take up the core question of whether the fees are illegally high.

A separate suit moving forward in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims alleges that the PACER system charges users for services never received, essentially by overcounting the number of pages of data it conveys.