The Eight District offered a not-so-gentle reminder that even with the advent of electronic filing, pleadings must be signed in order to be accepted for filing by the clerk of courts. This is extremely important when filing actions on the final day of the statute of limitations, as most lawyers invariably do. In Culler v. Marc Glassman, the simple omission of a signature turned out to be a costly mistake. It was the basis for affirming the trial court's decision dismissing the action against two of three defendants. By the time the omission was detected, the statute of limitations had expired.
In that case, the plaintiff filed a negligence action against Marc Glassman and two other defendants for an accident occurring on January 9, 2012. The plaintiff filed a case against Marc Glassman in February 2013 and dismissed that action on December 6, 2013. On January 9, 2014, he attempted to file another action against Marc Glassman and but this time included two additional defendants. Unfortunately, the clerk rejected the filing because it lacked a signature and the plaintiff was not aware of that fact until January 24, 2014 when the deficiency was remedied. Based on those facts, the Eighth District determined that the action was not timely noting that the plaintiff could have checked the clerk's website immediately after filing and should have noticed the lack of a signature himself.
The result seems overly harsh in light of the circumstances. The court noted that the plaintiff could have asked the trial court to deem the January 24th filing as filed on ninth to avoid application of the two-year statute of limitations. The trial court's decision granting the motion to dismiss, however, makes no mention of the fact that there was a technical issue with the January 9th filing, despite the fact that the plaintiff raised that as an issue in his brief in opposition to the motion to dismiss. That, apparently, is insufficient to preserve the issue. While the case will of limited use to future litigants in light of the fact specific nature of the decision, in the meantime, it serves as a cautionary tale that should be heeded by anyone electronically filing a pleading.
