{"id":1187,"date":"2016-10-13T14:10:33","date_gmt":"2016-10-13T14:10:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.apslaw.com\/on-appeal\/?p=1187"},"modified":"2023-04-20T11:21:38","modified_gmt":"2023-04-20T15:21:38","slug":"supreme-court-affirms-dismissal-of-case-that-resulted-from-counsels-failure-to-ensure-accurate-contact-information-in-electronic-filing-portal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.apslaw.com\/on-appeal\/electronic-filing\/supreme-court-affirms-dismissal-of-case-that-resulted-from-counsels-failure-to-ensure-accurate-contact-information-in-electronic-filing-portal\/","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court Affirms Dismissal of Case That Resulted From Counsel\u2019s Failure to Ensure Accurate Contact Information in Electronic Filing Portal"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the first Rhode Island Supreme Court decision to address the Rhode Island Judiciary\u2019s new electronic filing system, the Court cautioned counsel to confirm the accuracy of their service contact information to ensure receipt of electronic filings.\u00a0 See<\/em> Santos v. D. Laikos, Inc., d\/b\/a Monet Lounge and John Doe<\/em>, 139 A.3d 394 (R.I. 2016).\u00a0 Failure to do so does not constitute excusable neglect.\u00a0 Id<\/em>. at 399.<\/p>\n

In Santos<\/em>, the defendant\u2019s counsel filed a motion to dismiss plaintiff\u2019s complaint and certified that he had filed the motion and accompanying memorandum of law through the electronic filing system and by mail. \u00a0Id<\/em>. at 397.\u00a0 Plaintiff\u2019s counsel did not respond or appear at the hearing on the motion and the Superior Court granted defendant\u2019s motion.\u00a0 Id<\/em>.\u00a0 Days later, the plaintiff filed an objection and motion to vacate, in which he asserted that his counsel had not received notice of the motion.\u00a0 Id<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Plaintiff later explained that his counsel did not receive notice of the motion when it was filed in the court\u2019s electronic filing system because she was not listed as a service contact at the time the motion was filed and she did not receive the paper copy that had been sent by mail because of an apparent mishap with the mail.\u00a0 Id<\/em>. at 398. \u00a0The Superior Court denied the plaintiff\u2019s motion to vacate and the plaintiff appealed.\u00a0 Id<\/em>.<\/p>\n

On appeal, the plaintiff argued that the order granting the motion to dismiss should have been vacated under Rule 60(b)(1). \u00a0Id<\/em>. \u00a0Rule 60(b)(1) provides that \u201cthe court may relieve a party or a party\u2019s legal representative from a final judgment, order, or proceeding for . . . [m]istake, inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect.\u201d\u00a0 Id<\/em>.<\/p>\n

After examining the reasons offered for the plaintiff\u2019s failure to respond to the motion, the Supreme Court concluded there were \u201cno extenuating circumstances which render excusable plaintiff\u2019s failure to object to or to attend the hearing on defendants\u2019 motion to dismiss.\u201d\u00a0 Id<\/em>. at 398-99.\u00a0 \u00a0The Court noted that \u201c[t]he plaintiff\u2019s explanation for his failure to take any action in response to defendants\u2019 motion\u2014that the motion was never received\u2014[fell] short of what this Court has deemed excusable neglect.\u201d\u00a0 Id<\/em>. at 399.\u00a0 Indeed, the Court observed that plaintiff\u2019s counsel\u2019s conduct was \u201cprecisely the type of \u2018unexplained neglect\u2019 and case mismanagement that we have said, on its own, does not suffice.\u201d\u00a0 Id<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Accordingly, the Supreme Court held that \u201cfailure to update the electronic filing system with the correct service contact information in a timely fashion\u201d did not constitute excusable neglect beyond counsel\u2019s control.\u00a0 Id<\/em>.<\/p>\n

In light of this decision, counsel should be diligent in confirming that their service contact information is listed for each of their cases in the Court\u2019s electronic filing portal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the first Rhode Island Supreme Court decision to address the Rhode Island Judiciary\u2019s new electronic filing system, the Court cautioned counsel to confirm the accuracy of their service contact information to ensure receipt of electronic filings.\u00a0 See Santos v. D. Laikos,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[139],"tags":[35,90],"class_list":["post-1187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-electronic-filing","tag-rhode-island-superior-court-practice","tag-timeliness"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.apslaw.com\/on-appeal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.apslaw.com\/on-appeal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.apslaw.com\/on-appeal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.apslaw.com\/on-appeal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.apslaw.com\/on-appeal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.apslaw.com\/on-appeal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1187\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.apslaw.com\/on-appeal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.apslaw.com\/on-appeal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.apslaw.com\/on-appeal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}