Abstract
To archivists and manuscript collectors and dealers, the term replevin describes governmental efforts to recover public records that are in the custody of a private party. Much of the existing writing on replevin and records focuses on the small number of court decisions regarding custody. More commonly, however, disputes concerning the ownership of records are settled between a government archives and a private party. Drawing upon active records, archival materials, and interviews with public officials, this article examines these quieter recovery cases alongside those that have resulted in a court decision and, in doing so, puts forth a representation of the replevin process. There are three layers to replevin presented in this article. First, this article outlines the general shape to the replevin process and presents a six-stage model that characterizes recovery efforts in the USA. The second layer focuses on the state of North Carolina and builds upon the six-stage model to identify common practices in each stage. The article then presents an individual example of recovery of a public record in North Carolina and, with this layer, considers what this narrative reveals about replevin.
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Notes
Replevin originated as legal action under English common law and persists today as a procedure for recovering personal property wrongfully held by another party. Because the legal system in Louisiana differs from the common law system in the other 49 states, this article’s discussion of replevin may not be applicable to the manner in which the Louisiana State Archives responds to public records that are outside of public custody. To understand the nuances of the recovery process in Louisiana, it would be beneficial to conduct an examination using the six-stage framework presented in this paper.
Public officials in the states of North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Virginia participated in semi-structured interviews about replevin. Records from these same states informed the author’s understanding of the replevin process.
In contrast to several states, North Carolina has both court precedent that found in favor of the state’s ownership of disputed records and statute that codifies a recovery procedure. The state of Pennsylvania, for example, has neither and has been noticeably less successful in recovery public records (Haury Interview with Author 2013; see Memorandum Opinion by Judge Pellegrini, Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission v. E.G. Marshall & Associates, 2009 Pa. Commw. 482).
Amicus curiae briefs are filed by parties who are not the plaintiff or defendant but who have an interest in the court’s decision.
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Acknowledgments
The author sincerely acknowledges Dr. Brian Beaton, Attorney Karen Blum, Dr. Kevin Cherry, Dr. Richard J. Cox, Dr. James “Kip” Currier, Dr. Elizabeth Dow, Pennsylvania State Archivist Dr. David Haury, Lyn Hart, North Carolina State Archivist Sarah Koonts, Dr. Tomas Lipinski, and the reference archivists at the State Archives of North Carolina for sharing their time, insight, and expertise during this study.
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Mattern, E. A six-stage process for recovery of public records: replevin and the state of North Carolina. Arch Sci 16, 195–212 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10502-015-9241-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10502-015-9241-9