ISBA Director of Legislative Affairs Jim Covington reviews bills in Springfield of interest to ISBA members. In this episode he covers the Open Meetings Act, Post-judgment collection procedures, Medical records of deceased family members, Power of Attorney Act and Judicial Privacy Act. More information on each bill is available below the video.

Open Meetings Act. Public Act 97-827 (Pihos, R-Glen Ellyn; Dillard, R-Westmont) makes two changes to the Open Meetings Act. (1) An agenda must set forth the general subject matter of any resolution or ordinance that will be the subject of final action at a meeting. (2) The public body must ensure that at least one copy of any notice and agenda for the meeting is continuously available for public review during the entire 48-hour period before the meeting. Posting on its website satisfies this requirement, but if a notice or agenda is not continuously available for the full 48-hour period because of events outside of the control of the public body, then that lack of availability does not invalidate any meeting or action taken at a meeting. Effective Jan. 1, 2013.

Post-judgment collection procedures. Public Act 97-848 (Williams, D-Chicago; Haine, D-Alton) makes three changes to citations and body attachments. (1) It requires a citation to be served by personal service or abode service as provided in Supreme Court Rule 105 attaching a copy of the statutory Income and Asset Form created by this bill. (2) It prohibits a payment order from being issued against a person unless the form was served on the debtor, the debtor has an opportunity to assert exemptions, and the payments are from nonexempt sources. (3) No order of body attachment or other civil order for incarceration may be issued for a respondent on a charge of indirect civil contempt unless the respondent has first had an opportunity to appear in court to answer after personal service or abode service of notice as provided in Section 2-203. It exempts enforcement for a violation of a municipal ordinance. (See the June Illinois Bar Journal article by Adam W. Lasker that discusses this bill in more detail.) Effective July 25, 2012.

Medical records of deceased family members. Public Act 97-867 (Sullivan, D-Rushville; Brady, R-Bloomington) does three things to the new provisions for getting medical records of deceased family members if no estate is opened. (1) It clarifies that a "handling" fee may not be charged to a patient or patient's representative under Section 8-2001.5. (2) It requires that health-care providers release this information to a patient representative as authorized under this Section. (3) It requires that a person purporting to be a patient representative certify that to be true under penalty of law. Effective July 30, 2012.

Power of Attorney Act. Public Act 97-868 (Dillard, R-Westmont; McAsey, D-Lockport) amends this Act to exclude certain kinds of agreements from the Act's regulation. Those excluded would be a financial institution named as an agent for any person if the agreement does not include a durable power of attorney that survives the incapacity of the principal. The amendment clarifies that this kind of agreement is not a "nonstatutory property power" subject to this Act's provisions pertaining to statutory short form powers of attorney for property. Effective July 30, 2012.  

Judicial Privacy Act. Public Act 97-847 (Madigan, D-Chicago; Cullerton, D-Chicago) creates the Judicial Privacy Act that allows a judge to prohibit a government agency or business from publishing "personal information" about a judge. It requires that the judge make a written request to the agency or business to trigger this protection. Effective September 22, 2012.