A federal judge in Washington, D.C., ruled Saturday that the federal judiciary improperly spent some $200 million of the $920 million in PACER fees it collected from 2010 to 2016.
In so ruling, U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle rejected the principal arguments of both the plaintiffs and the defendants in the case. The plaintiffs had argued that the judiciary could recoup PACER fees only to the extent necessary to cover the total marginal cost of operating the PACER system. The judiciary had argued it could use PACER funds for anything related to “dissemination of information through electronic means.”
