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Warren court ponders legal action over software-company foldup
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Warren Municipal Court is considering a class-action lawsuit with other courts after the Virginia company American Cadastre folded up its justice-solutions computer-software division.
Warren Municipal Court paid AMCAD $598,000 of an $897,000 contract this year to overhaul the court’s records-management system, and it is working fine.
But in June, Margaret Scott, clerk of courts, received an email from the company saying it no longer would operate the part of the company dealing with court-records management.
Scott has been unable to get much information from the company since the email, but it’s clear that Warren Municipal needs new software as soon as possible. Because AMCAD abandoned the software, the city won’t be able to upgrade it when the Ohio Supreme Court or Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles mandates changes, Scott said.
Warren is among numerous courts in Ohio using AMCAD software or under contract to use it, including Columbiana, Shelby, Union and Medina counties. AMCAD’S decision has also left many other courts across the country in a bind.
City officials will be meeting soon to decide their next steps, but Scott hopes to have a contract in place by the end of September for a replacement system.
Scott said AMCAD was chosen because AMCAD offered paperless, touch-screen capabilities — technology not available through the court’s previous vendor, Courtview. Warren Municipal Court went online with AMCAD in June 2012.
According to some media accounts, AMCAD CEO Richard Lowrey’s email to its customers in June said it had run into cash-flow problems as a result of a decision by the Oklahoma Supreme Court to terminate a $13 million contract with AMCAD to create a 77-county court computer system.
“It’s a shame,” Scott said of the problems AMCAD is having. “It would have been a tremendous system if they would have followed through with it.”
Columbiana County officials paid $469,000 for a court-records-management system but had not yet gone online with it, said Shane Patrone, chief deputy of the Columbiana County Clerk of Courts office.
Still having the old system in place is a plus because it still can be upgraded over the coming months, but it will hurt the county to have to continue to pay the loan for the $469,000 and then spend additional money to get a new program later, Patrone said.
County officials will continue evaluating options for a new software package in the coming week and hopes to select one by the end of the year.
Columbiana County selected AMCAD because it offered features not available elsewhere and because the Ohio Supreme Court had identified the company as its “preferred provider” at the time, he said.