Michael Stephan
Electronic filing of court documents has become a relatively common practice in this country. Nearly all jurisdictions allow electronic filing in some manner, and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure expressly permit electronic filing. The benefits of filing documents electronically rather than physically are clear: it’s typically cheaper, faster, and easier.
Nevertheless, some courts still require paper-and-ink documents to arrive in their mailboxes. On Tuesday, the Ninth Circuit questioned this requirement when an immigrant missed a filing deadline by one day due to a Postal Service error. The decision, Irigoyen-Briones v. Holder, calls on courts to “assume the availability of email and the internet when [assessing] the reasonableness of government action.”
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