Downloading public court documents costs a dime a page—is that legal?

Enlarge / Chief Justice John Roberts did not actually use PACER fees to buy a new chair. That's just a hypothetical example. (credit: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

If you need documents from federal court cases, you're in luck. Almost every brief, exhibit, and legal ruling is available for download from the judiciary's PACER website. But there's a catch: documents cost 10 cents a page.

In 2016, three nonprofit organizations, the National Veterans Legal Services Program, the National Consumer Law Center, and the Alliance for Justice sued the federal courts-in federal court. The class action lawsuit, filed on behalf of all fee-paying PACER users, argued that these hefty charges were illegal. Federal law allows the courts to charge fees "only to the extent necessary" to provide public access to information. Over the last 15 years, the cost of storage and bandwidth has plunged. Yet PACER's fees have actually risen from 7 cents to 10 cents. These fees have raised far more money than it costs to run the PACER system: $146 million in 2016 alone.

In a 2018 ruling, Judge Ellen Huvelle largely agreed with the plaintiffs, concluding that the courts are breaking the law by spending PACER money on non-PACER projects like installing flat-screen TVs in courtrooms and sending electronic notifications to bankruptcy creditors. On Monday, the case reached the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, where three judges heard oral arguments from each side. Judges seemed skeptical of the arguments of government lawyers representing the judiciary.

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