DES MOINES, Iowa (Legal Newsline) – Forgetting to include her birthday or Social Security number has cost an Iowa woman her chance to file a personal injury lawsuit.
Patricia Carlson was on the wrong end of a March 18 ruling from the Iowa Supreme Court that affirmed earlier decisions by the Linn County District Court and the state Court of Appeals. Carlson was trying to sue a real estate company and a property services company but ended up filing her lawsuit too late.
“(T)he identification information missing from Carlson’s cover sheet is necessary to allow the clerk to correctly docket the matter, index the parties, and route the filings,” Justice Christopher McDonald wrote.
“In the absence of such information, Carlson’s cover sheet was not ‘complete enough for internal administrative purposes.’”
Carlson’s problem started on Jan. 3, 2020 – a Friday. She sought to bring suit over an incident that happened Jan. 8, 2018, to narrowly beat the two-year statute of limitations.
But her cover sheet was missing her birthday and Social Security number; plus, it was filed after regular business hours at 6:53 p.m. The Linn County clerk noticed the problems on Monday and at 2:54 p.m. on Jan. 6, Carlson’s lawyer was emailed a rejection that said the court needed one of the two methods of identification.
It took until Thursday, Jan. 9, for the lawyer to refile. Courts found this was done a day too late to beat the statute of limitations, and the lawyer argued the actual date it was filed was Jan. 3 – when the incomplete cover sheet was sent.
Three exceptions from other cases didn’t apply here, the Iowa Supreme Court found:
-Carlson failed to establish she timely submitted an electronic filing that was otherwise proper except for minor errors;
-Carlson couldn’t show her filing was returned by the clerk’s office after the deadline; and
-Carlson’s lawyer did not “promptly” resubmit the filing after correcting the errors.
Also failing was the argument that there is a difference between rules for paper copies and electronic. A clerk receiving a paper copy with the same error would have noticed immediately at the courthouse, the plaintiff argued.
“Carlson attempted to efile her petition after regular business hours on Friday,” McDonald wrote.
“On the following workday, Monday, the clerk identified the error, rejected the filing, notified Carlson’s counsel of the error, and instructed her counsel on how to correct the error. This was done quickly over the clerk’s ‘virtual counter,’ so to speak, and gave Carlson more than sufficient time to correct the filing.”
Carlson lost another argument that the clerk should have called her lawyer.
Justice Brent Appel dissented, deeming the errors on the cover sheet minor. Carlson was represented by John C. Wagner.