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CRS Notes Column
Column V of the CASE DATA sheet is where Napier writes down anything about a row that the other columns cannot say on their own. Most rows have nothing in it. A row that does has something on it that a person needs to look at, or at least know about before quoting a number off the sheet.
More than one note can land in the same cell. They are separated by spaces and read in order, so a long cell is a row with several things going on, not one long message.
The notes fall into three groups, and the group tells you how much of a hurry you are in:
- Money notes. The ICOS total in column U is still right. The fee columns next to it are less precise than they look. Nothing is wrong with the row.
- Coding notes. Column G or column D or column H came out on a guess, or came out empty, and at least one analysis sheet is going to read that literally. Check the case in ICOS before you rely on the sheet.
- Client notes. Something about how the record was matched to your client, rather than about the case itself.
Below is every message Napier can write, what it actually means, and what to do about it.
These say the row's balances are grouped more coarsely than the columns suggest. In every one of them the ICOS total in column U is correct. If all you need is what the client owes on the case, take column U and stop reading.
"[ICOS CATEGORY] did not add up against the itemization, so that balance is ICOS's category total rather than a per-fee breakdown..."
ICOS displays fees two ways on a case's ICOS financial summary page: a five-line summary at the top that lists different categories (COSTS, FINE, SURCHARGE, RESTITUTION, OTHER), and an itemized fee list underneath. Napier adds up the itemization and checks it against the categories. When they don't match for a category, Napier trusts the summary and puts that category's whole balance in one column instead of splitting it.
The sentence names the categories it happened to (it can be any of the five, and more than one), and if a balance ended up in MISCELLANEOUS (column O), it says so. A category that is paid in full is not named: there was nothing to place, so there is nothing to warn about. It ends one of two ways:
- "...The rest of the row is fee by fee and the ICOS total is still right." Only the named categories are lumped. Everything else on the row split normally.
- "...Each balance is in the fee column its itemized lines name, and the ICOS total is still right." Nothing on this row split. Every column on the row is a category total.
What to do: use column U for the amount owed, and let the client know there may be a discrepancy in the fee breakdown. Don't quote an individual fee column off this row as if it were a single fee. If a specific fee matters, for example for a bankruptcy analysis, request an accounting from the clerk.
"Fee columns are ICOS's five summary categories, not a per-fee breakdown. The itemization could not be reconciled against them, so sheriff, indigent defense, jail and probation fees are inside MISCELLANEOUS rather than in their own columns. The ICOS total is still right."
The same thing, but for a case where nothing at all is reconciled. The row is ICOS's five summary lines and nothing itemized. Sheriff, indigent defense, jail and probation money are sitting in MISCELLANEOUS (column O).
What to do: same as above. Use column U. If you need to know how much of it is jail fees, that answer isn't on this row, it's in ICOS.
"ICOS gave no category summary for this case, so the fee columns come from the itemization. ICOS leaves the itemization's paid column blank on most fees, so anything already paid may still be counted here. Treat these as assessed rather than owed."
The opposite problem. There was no summary to work from, so the row is built out of the itemized list. ICOS doesn't always fill in what was paid on the itemization, so the figures here are what was charged over the life of the case, not what's still outstanding. The client may have paid some of it.
What to do: this is the one money note where the numbers may be higher than what the client owes. Don't use it to tell a client what their balance is. Check ICOS or the clerk for the current balance.
"The part of COSTS that ICOS does not identify in the itemization is in UNKNOWN; the identified fees remain in their own columns."
Most of the court debt breakdown is accurate. There is debt that ICOS doesn't label, and that debt is in the UNKNOWN column (column P).
What to do: nothing, unless the UNKNOWN debt is large enough to matter to what you're doing. The rest of the row is good.
"ICOS records payments per category, not per fee. The payment in COSTS could not be tied to a specific line, so that balance is ICOS's category total."
There was a payment on the case and ICOS deducted it from one of the summary categories without showing which fee the payment was applied to in the itemized breakdown section. Napier can't split a category once it can't tell where the payment landed, so it displays the category total.
What to do: nothing. The category total is right. The split inside it just isn't available. If necessary, you can ask the clerk for an accounting.
"The COSTS balance is divided across its fee columns in proportion to what those fees were assessed, so the column totals are estimates. Request an accounting before relying on the split."
This one is different from the rest and worth reading carefully. Napier did split the category across the fee columns, but it split it proportionally because ICOS didn't say how the money actually applied. The numbers in those columns are estimates.
What to do: the category total and column U are right. The individual columns are Napier's best guess at the split. If you're going to rely on one of them, ask the clerk for an accounting first.
"Category fees total $X but ICOS shows $Y due (summary figures) - trust the ICOS total; the difference is usually payments or third-party collection fees ICOS no longer counts"
The fee columns and the ICOS total disagree. When this happens the row's ICOS total in column U is highlighted so you can spot it. This usually happens when the clerk records payment plan payments as an itemized item rather than showing where those payments were actually applied, or when collection costs were deducted from the summary but not removed from the itemized section.
What to do: use column U.
These are the ones to take seriously. Every one of them means an analysis sheet is about to answer a question based on something Napier had to guess at, or based on a blank.
"Iowa Courts recorded a disposition Napier does not recognise (WORDING), so this case is coded OTH, and the sheets do not agree on what that means. The licence sheet reads OTH as no conviction and the expungement sheet answers n/a, but the bankruptcy and exemption sheets sort this case's debt as a conviction's. Check this case in ICOS before relying on any of them."
A clerk entered a disposition wording Napier has never seen. The row is coded OTH, which is Napier's "I don't know". The problem is that the sheets disagree about OTH, so this row will read as no conviction on one sheet and as a conviction on another.
What to do: open the case in ICOS and read the disposition yourself. Then tell Alex what the wording was. Napier learns these one at a time, and once it's added, every future client with that wording is coded correctly.
"No count on this case has been adjudicated in Iowa Courts. The only disposition it carries is the status of the case as a whole (STATUS), which Napier does not translate into a CRS code, so column G is empty. The BANKRUPTCY, EXEMPTIONS and SOL sheets all read an empty column G as "open charge", so this case appears on those three as a charge still pending against the client. A case Iowa Courts has closed or transferred is not that. Check this case in ICOS before relying on any of them."
Different from the one above. Here no individual charge was ever ruled on. All ICOS has is a status for the case as a whole (the STATUS in the note is that case-level status, quoted from ICOS), and Napier deliberately refuses to turn most of those statuses into a code rather than guess. The empty column the note is talking about is column G.
The consequence is the important part: three sheets will show this as a pending charge against your client. If the case was actually closed or moved to another county, that's wrong, and could be seen as a barrier to a conviction expungement or juvenile sealing.
What to do: check ICOS and see if there is any indication of a disposition date and what the disposition of the case is. If ICOS makes the answer clear, change the disposition code in column G to the proper one. Either way, send the status wording to Alex.
- If ICOS says "OLD CHARGE CODE" or "CLOSED", leave the disposition code as OTH. You will need to pull the physical file to confirm what happened.
- If ICOS says "Transferred" or "Change of Venue", use the TNSF disposition code, and add the transfer date and a note of where it was transferred to if you can find that information.
- If the case has court debt and is left as OTH, this row's answers on BANKRUPTCY, EXEMPTIONS and SOL will not be reliable. You will need to ask for the file and possibly an accounting.
"Iowa Courts show no adjudication on this case, so column D is blank and column G has no code. Column D blank is what tells the EXPUNGEMENT sheet this charge is still pending, but the SOL sheet reads it as a date and a blank reads as 1900: it reports this row's indigent defense and collection costs as barred by the 20 year limit, counts jail and room & board as 20 years old, and leaves the rest of the balance out of all three of its columns. Nothing here has aged out, because there is no judgment yet. Treat this row's SOL figures as unanswered."
This is a genuinely pending case, and Napier is right to leave it blank. The EXPUNGEMENT sheet handles that correctly. The SOL sheet does not, because it does arithmetic on the date and reads a blank as the year 1900.
What to do: on this row only, ignore the SOL sheet. It will tell you the debt is time barred. It isn't. There's no judgment yet for the clock to run from. Everything else on the row is fine.
"The only disposition Iowa Courts show on this case is an adjudication, and this is not a juvenile case number, so column G reads JUV. Clerks enter "Adjudicated" on probation violation and contempt counts as well as on juvenile ones. If that is what this is, the case's real disposition is not on the page and JUV is wrong: BANKRUPTCY and EXEMPTIONS both read JUV as no conviction and will treat this debt as dischargeable. Check it."
The case number isn't a juvenile number, but the only thing on the page is "Adjudicated", which is the juvenile word. Clerks also use it for probation violations and contempt.
What to do: check the case on ICOS. If it is an adult case, change JUV to GTR in column G. Check it before advising on a bankruptcy: if this is really a probation violation on an adult conviction, the sheet is currently telling you the debt is dischargeable when it may not be.
"This case has X disposition dates (DATES). Column D counts the conviction date: DATE. For SOL analysis please review ICOS information for the timeline of debt assessed."
The counts on this case were disposed on different days (X is the number of dates). The CRS has one row per case and one date column, so column D holds the conviction date, which is the one the expungement waiting periods run from.
The SOL sheet runs its twenty year test off that same single date, so for cases with debt assessed later in time (for example probation violation attorney fees and court costs, or appeal filing fees), you will need to double-check the assessment dates of those fees.
What to do: for the expungement analysis the date in column D is correct. If you're doing SOL work on this case, go look at the actual timeline in ICOS.
"Column H is blank because Iowa Courts give the adjudicated charge as ORDINANCE, a city or county ordinance citation with no state chapter in it, so Napier cannot tell whether this is a chapter 321 offence. LICENSE-REGIS reads the blank as "Registration only". If the ordinance mirrors a chapter 321 offence the licence is at stake too, so check this one before advising on it."
The charge is a city or county ordinance, so there's no state chapter number for Napier to check against chapter 321. Column H, the "Vehicular?" column, is left blank, and LICENSE-REGIS treats blank the same as no.
What to do: look up what the ordinance covers. If the city ordinance is traffic related and has court debt, add YES to column H ("Vehicular?") so it triggers the LICENSE-REGIS sheet correctly as a potential license and registration hold. Plenty of city ordinances mirror chapter 321, and if this one does, the licence consequence is real and the sheet is currently saying "Registration only".
"This case is adjudicated under more than 12 statutes and the expungement sheet only screens the first 12. The rest (STATUTES) have to be checked by hand against 901C.2."
The expungement sheet has twelve slots for statutes and this case has more than twelve. The extras are named in the note.
What to do: add the extra statutes to column F ("Adjudicated Statutory Reference"), separating each individual code cite with a semicolon, no space. Then make sure to consider all of the statutes when completing the expungement analysis. Any one of them could be a disqualifier, and the sheet has not looked at them.
"CODE is in no formula in this Lite workbook. The eligibility answers on this row are the ones the full CRS gives; what Lite has no sheet for is sorting this case's debt as dischargeable or exempt. Build it on the full CRS if you need that."
Lite workbooks only. Napier writes the same columns to Lite and full workbooks, so the row itself is complete and identical either way. The only difference between the two is that Lite doesn't have the BANKRUPTCY, EXEMPTIONS and SOL sheets, and those three are the only sheets whose formulas look for this row's code (CIV or JWV). So the eligibility answers on the row are right; what's missing is the sorting of this case's debt as dischargeable or exempt, because the sheets that do that aren't in Lite.
What to do: nothing, unless you need this case's debt analysis. Then rebuild the client on the full CRS, which has the three sheets.
The workbook was built from more than one spelling of your client's name, and this case is filed under the spelling given here rather than the primary one. Usually a maiden name, a middle name, or a clerk's typo.
What to do: nothing, as long as the name looks like your client. If it doesn't, this case may belong to someone else.
Iowa Courts listed this case with no date of birth, and it was picked on the name only. Every other row in the workbook was confirmed against a date of birth. This one was not.
What to do: for criminal cases or any cases with court debt, confirm the case is your client's before using it. Common names are the risk here.
| If the note is about | Column U (total) | The fee columns | The analysis sheets |
|---|---|---|---|
| Any of the money notes | Correct | Coarser or estimated | Fine |
| "Treat these as assessed rather than owed" | Correct | May include paid amounts | Fine |
| OTH / unrecognised disposition | Correct | Fine | Disagree with each other, check ICOS |
| Empty column G / case status only | Correct | Fine | Show a pending charge that may not exist |
| Pending case, column D blank | Correct | Fine | SOL is wrong, expungement is right |
| JUV on an adult case number | Correct | Fine | Bankruptcy and exemptions may be wrong |
| Several disposition dates | Correct | Fine | Expungement right, check SOL by hand |
| Ordinance charge, column H blank | Correct | Fine | LICENSE-REGIS says "Registration only" without checking |
| More than 12 statutes | Correct | Fine | Expungement screened only the first 12 |
| Lite: code in no formula | Correct | Fine | Eligibility answers right; debt not sorted, use full CRS for that |
| Filed under / DOB-Unknown | Correct | Fine | Fine, but confirm it's your client |
Two of these notes are Napier telling you it hit something it hasn't been taught yet:
- "a disposition Napier does not recognise (WORDING)"
- "the status of the case as a whole (STATUS), which Napier does not translate"
Both name the exact wording in the note. Sending that wording back means it gets added, and nobody sees that note on that wording again.