Richland County moves to formal service for small claims, begins court-file purges

Richland County officials said the county will require formal service for all small-claims cases and is undertaking a large-scale purge of older court files to align public access with Wisconsin Supreme Court retention rules.

At the Jan. 2 meeting of the Richland County Public Safety Standing Committee, the clerk of court described end-of-year projects that included mass mailings for guardianship reports and the use of state-developed software to identify records eligible for removal. The clerk said, "the software has been developed by the state of Wisconsin circuit court system to be able to read all the pieces of data and determine which ones are eligible for purge." The purge, the clerk said, will make the county’s online court access consistent with physical records.

The clerk also announced a procedural change for small-claims cases. Going forward, "all small claims filed in Richland County for money judgments, those are civil cases under $10,000 of value or replevin, which means repossessions of vehicles or other property or evictions," will require formal service rather than the prior use of first-class mail where a local rule allowed it. The clerk told the committee the change responds to instances where first-class mail later returned as undeliverable after a case was adjudicated.

The clerk estimated the change will require about 20 additional sheriff-service tasks per month and said the shift will modestly move revenue from the clerk’s office to the sheriff’s office because sheriff service carries a higher statutory fee. The clerk said the change also ensures defendants receive notice in contested civil matters.

Why it matters: County officials said the dual action—removing records from public displays when retention ends and strengthening service requirements—aims to both protect individuals from indefinitely searchable records and to ensure defendants are properly notified. The county said it has informed attorneys who file small claims of the new service requirement and updated its filing software to display the formal-service requirement.

What’s next: The committee did not take separate formal action on the procedural change at the meeting; the clerk reported the office had reconfigured its software and notified local attorneys. Further implementation details, including the precise count of affected filings and an exact start date for uniform enforcement, were not specified in the meeting record.