HB0487 substantially revises Tennessee’s court clerk fee and cost statutes, primarily by replacing and consolidating the existing fee schedule in Tennessee Code Annotated § 8-21-401 and related provisions. The bill sets new standardized filing fees and court costs across circuit, chancery, probate/estate, juvenile, general sessions, criminal, and other proceedings, with staged increases beginning January 1, 2026 and continuing through January 1, 2028 for many categories. It also preserves or clarifies several exceptions, including pauper’s oaths for indigent litigants, special treatment for orders of protection, and reduced or unchanged charges in certain state-paid or child-related matters.
In addition to the fee schedule overhaul, the bill authorizes and clarifies several clerk-related charges and administrative practices. It allows clerks to assess fees for continuances, electronic filing and document retrieval systems, and certain other services, while earmarking $7 from each standard filing fee for technology-related expenses. It also creates a new $2 litigation privilege tax in most civil and criminal cases outside juvenile and municipal courts, with proceeds dedicated to a court clerk continuing education account. The bill deletes two existing code sections, updates cross-references in other statutes, and adds a $5 administrative fee for violations of the traffic-related statute amended in § 55-8-199.
The bill’s impact on state law is broad because it rewrites the statutory framework governing how clerks collect fees, commissions, and costs, and how those revenues are allocated. It affects litigants, attorneys, clerks, courts, and the state treasury by changing filing costs, preserving indigency protections, and creating dedicated funding streams for clerk technology and education. The act takes effect January 1, 2026, giving courts and clerks time to implement the new structure.
Overall, the bill appears to have been received favorably in committee and on the floor, with unanimous or near-unanimous committee recommendations and strong final passage votes. The voting history suggests general support for the administrative modernization and fee restructuring, though the floor vote was not entirely unanimous, indicating some limited opposition or concern. No committee transcript is available, so the record does not show detailed debate, but the pattern of votes suggests the bill was broadly accepted as a court administration measure.
The main points of contention likely concern the higher filing fees, the new litigation tax, and the expanded authority for clerks to collect additional costs, especially from civil litigants and criminal defendants. Potential concerns also include the burden on self-represented or low-income parties, even though the bill expressly preserves pauper’s oath procedures and indigency protections. At the same time, supporters likely viewed the bill as a way to fund clerk technology, training, and court operations more predictably while standardizing a complex fee system.
HB0487 rewrites Tennessee’s court clerk fee statutes by replacing § 8-21-401 and deleting §§ 8-21-408 and 8-21-409, while updating related cross-references in Titles 18, 55, and 67. It establishes new filing fees, costs, and commissions for multiple court types, authorizes certain additional clerk charges, creates a dedicated court clerk continuing education account funded by a new litigation privilege tax, and earmarks part of standard filing fees for technology expenses. It also preserves indigency access, special rules for orders of protection, and reduced charges for certain state-related matters.
The bill appears to have had broadly positive support in the legislative process. It moved through subcommittee and committee stages with unanimous or near-unanimous recommendations and passed the House and Senate with strong margins, though not without some dissent on the floor. The overall tone suggests the measure was viewed as a practical court-administration and revenue-structure bill rather than a highly controversial policy change.
The likely areas of disagreement are the increased filing fees and costs, the new $2 litigation privilege tax, and the additional administrative fee for certain traffic violations, all of which raise the cost of accessing the courts or resolving cases. Opponents may have been concerned about the burden on litigants, especially in civil, criminal, and domestic-relations matters, while supporters likely emphasized funding for clerk technology, security, and continuing education. The bill’s indigency and pauper’s oath protections appear designed to address access-to-justice concerns, but those protections may not fully eliminate objections to higher baseline fees.