TITLE TWO — COMMENCEMENT OF ACTION; SERVICE OF PROCESS, PLEADINGS, MOTIONS AND ORDERS
Rule 5.3. Clerk Review; Rejection; Corrected Refiling
Review by the Clerk. Except as Rule 5.4(6) provides, the clerk shall review every filing that attains the status of Submitted and shall either accept it for filing or reject it. A deputy clerk may act for the clerk, and the act of a deputy clerk is entitled to the same faith and credit as that of the clerk, as provided by 3 R. Stat. § 131.103 and 3 R. Stat. § 121.203.
Same: Court-Scoped Authority. A clerk may decide only filings in matters of the court to which the clerk is designated. A clerk of the Superior Court has no authority over a filing in a matter of the Supreme Court, and a clerk of the Supreme Court has no authority over a filing in a matter of the Superior Court.
Grounds for Rejection. The clerk may reject a filing in the clerk’s judgment, including on any of the following grounds:
The filing does not comply with Rule 5(17) or with any requirement of form prescribed by Rule 10;
The documents comprising the filing do not answer to the filing code;
The filer is not a party, an attorney of record, or a person otherwise authorized to file in the case;
A document comprising the filing is unreadable, corrupt, or is not the document the filing describes;
The filing is a notice of appearance by a person of whose admission to practice in this State the records of the court disclose nothing;
The filing duplicates a filing already accepted in the case, or is a second transmission of a filing already decided; or
The filing is scandalous, indecent, or interposed for delay or harassment.
Rejection; Statement of Reason. A rejection is of no effect unless the clerk states a reason for it. The reason shall not exceed five hundred (500) characters and shall be recorded with the identity of the clerk who rejected the filing and the date and time of the rejection.
Finality of the Decision. A filing that has been accepted or rejected has been decided and shall not be decided again. There is no un-acceptance, no vacatur of an acceptance, and no reconsideration of a rejection.
Return to Review. Where a document arrives after the filing has been accepted, the filing returns to the status of Submitted and the clerk shall decide it anew upon the complete set. This is the only circumstance in which an accepted filing is decided again.
No Partial Acceptance. Acceptance and rejection operate upon the filing as a unit. The clerk shall not accept some documents of a filing and reject others, and shall not accept a filing in part or upon condition.
No Amendment; No Withdrawal; No Correction. A filed document shall not be amended, withdrawn, corrected, supplemented, substituted, or struck from the record. No motion shall be made, and no order shall issue, to amend, withdraw, correct, or remove a filed document.
Corrected Refiling the Sole Cure. The sole cure for a defective, rejected, or erroneous filing is a corrected refiling: a new filing, carrying the corrected documents, transmitted anew through the electronic filing system.
A corrected refiling bears its own filing date, being the date and time at which its own last document was received.
A corrected refiling does not relate back through the record to the date of the filing it cures.
There is no filing date nunc pro tunc. No order shall assign to a filing a date other than the date the electronic filing system recorded.
Relief for a Filer Whose Filing Was Rejected. A party aggrieved by a rejection may move the assigned judge for relief. The court shall not alter the record or the filing date. The court may:
Enlarge or excuse a period under Rule 6, upon a finding of excusable neglect, taking the rejection into account;
Direct the clerk as to the treatment of a corrected refiling; and
Amended Pleadings Distinguished. Nothing in this rule limits the amendment of a pleading. An amended pleading is a new filing that supersedes an earlier pleading as a matter of pleading law, governed by Rule 16. The earlier pleading remains in the record; it is superseded, not removed, corrected, or withdrawn.
Rejection of a Notice of Appearance. Rejection of a notice of appearance strikes the representation it created. Where the notice created the client’s party record, that record is removed; otherwise the link between the attorney and the party is severed. This is the only means by which an attorney of record is removed from a case. Withdrawal and substitution of counsel are governed by Rule 11.1.
Rejection of a Case. The clerk may reject a case only while it is active and no judge has been assigned to it. Rejection of a case rejects every filing in it that is Pending or Submitted and voids every fee in it that is unpaid.
Non-Public Filings. A filing that is Pending, that is Upload Failed, or that has been rejected is not upon the public docket, and neither its existence, its documents, nor the reason stated for its rejection is available to any person who is not a participant in the case or an officer of the court. The public docket comprises those filings that are Submitted or Accepted, in matters that are not restricted under Rule 5.4.
Fees Not Reviewed. The clerk shall not consider whether a fee has been assessed, paid, waived, or voided in deciding whether to accept a filing. Rule 6.1 governs.
Audit. Every acceptance and every rejection is recorded with the identity of the clerk, the action taken, and the time of the action. That record is available to the court and to the participants in the case and shall be produced on the court’s direction.