Senate Bill No. 111
(By Senators Dittmar and Snyder)
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[Introduced February 24, 1997; referred to the Committee
on the Judiciary.]
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A BILL to amend article one, chapter forty-six-a of the code of
West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as
amended, by adding thereto a new section, designated section
one hundred eight, relating to electronic records retention
under the West Virginia consumer credit and protection act.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That article one, chapter forty-six-a of the code of West
Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as amended, be
amended by adding thereto a new section, designated section one
hundred eight, to read as follows:
ARTICLE 1. SHORT TITLE, DEFINITIONS AND GENERAL PROVISIONS.
§46A-1-108. Records retention methods.
(a) All persons subject to the provisions of this chapter
who are required to create or maintain records or other documents
in the course of their business, may copy or reproduce those records or documents by any existing and acceptable method of
reproduction or retention technology (other than its notes,
bonds, mortgages and other securities and investments) and may
substitute copies or reproductions of the records or documents
either in positive or negative form for the originals. A copy or
reproduction in the form of a positive print is deemed to be an
original counterpart of and has the same force as the original
and is admissible in evidence in all courts and administrative
agencies in this state for all purposes. The original may be
destroyed or otherwise eliminated. However, the originals or
copies of the records or documents shall be retained under
applicable records retention requirements.
(b) When copies of documents are offered in evidence, all
circumstances surrounding the making or issuance of the
documents, books, records, correspondence and other instruments,
papers or writings, or the photographic, photostatic or
microphotographic copies or optical disks or other permissible
reproductions represented by the copies, may be shown to affect
the weight of the documents as evidence, but not the
admissibility.
(c) Any devise used to copy or reproduce documents and
records shall be one which correctly and accurately reproduces
the original document or record in all details and any disk or film used for this purpose shall be of durable material.
NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to make clear that
modern, electronic records retention practices may be followed by
persons required to create or maintain records under the West
Virginia Consumer Credit and Protection Act.
This section is new; therefore, strike-throughs and
underscoring have been omitted.