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2003 Wisconsin Attorney General Reports and Opinions 1 (2003)

handle is hein.sag/sagwi0001 and id is 1 raw text is: PEGGY A. LAUTENSCHLAGER 114 East, State Capitol ATTORNEY GENERAL P.O. Box 7857 Madison, WI 53707-7857 Daniel P. Bach Deputy Attorney General October 2, 2003 OAG 01-03 Mr. John Muench Corporation Counsel Barron County 330 East LaSalle Avenue, Room 207 Barron, WI 54812 Dear Mr. Muench: You have sought my opinion concerning the scope of the authority of county registers of deeds, with approval from their respective county boards, to negotiate contracts pursuant to Wis. Stat. § 59.43(2)(c) to provide noncertified copies of the complete daily recordings and filings of documents pertaining to real property for a consideration to be determined by the board. During the course of considering your request, we have had the benefit of additional information and legal argument from the Wisconsin Registers of Deeds Association, the Wisconsin Land Title Association, the County Corporation Counsel Association, from several individual registers of deeds and corporation counsel and from representatives of two private businesses interested in this matter. From the volume of material we have received, the questions that must be addressed can be distilled as follows: First, do county registers have the statutory authority to insist that contracts pursuant to Wis. Stat. § 59.43(2)(c) include provisions prohibiting the contracting party from selling or disseminating copies of the records they receive pursuant to such contracts? Second, if an entity requests electronic copies of records maintained pursuant to Wis. Stat. § 59.43(4) in lieu of entering into a contract for such copies pursuant to Wis. Stat. § 59.43(2)(c) or otherwise, what is the statutory fee that registers may charge for such electronic copies of recorded documents? For the reasons discussed below, I conclude that registers may insist on provisions protecting the integrity and identity of records obtained pursuant to such contracts and protecting the public as well. Moreover, the authority to require provisions prohibiting the sale or dissemination of such records by the contractor is not prohibited and may reasonably be implied from the broad language of Wis. Stat. § 59.43(2)(c). Finally, I conclude, based on the language, context and legislative history of Wis. Stat. § 59.43 as a whole, that the fee requirements of Wis. Stat. § 59.43(2)(b), and not those of the general public records statute, Wis. Stat. § 19.35(3), apply to electronic copies of records obtained pursuant to Wis. Stat. § 59.43(4), unless the

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