Electronic filing and service

1. Electronic filing. a. Documents may be filed electronically with an agency, if permitted by the agency. If a proceeding has been assigned to a hearing officer outside of the agency and the agency permits documents to be filed electronically, documents may be filed electronically with the designated hearing officer. If a proceeding has been assigned to a hearing officer outside the agency and the agency has not stated whether it will permit electronic filing, documents may be filed electronically with the designated hearing officer, if permitted by the hearing officer or the hearing officer's agency. b. A document filed electronically has the same legal effect as a paper document. c. The typed name or facsimile signature on a document filed electronically has the same effect as an original manually affixed signature. 2. Filing formats. Documents filed electronically must be submitted by facsimile transmission or by e-mail. E-mailed documents must be in portable document format (.pdf) or in an approved word processing format. a. Approved word processing formats for documents filed electronically are those approved by the agency or, if the proceeding has been assigned to a hearing officer outside the agency, those approved by the designated hearing officer or the designated hearing officer's agency, if the designated hearing officer or the designated hearing officer's agency has a different word processing format. Permission must be obtained in advance of submission to submit documents in other than an approved word processing format. b. All pages or paragraphs must be numbered in a document filed by e-mail, as required by the agency, except in cover letters or attachments to a document. Reference to material in an e-mail document must be to page number or paragraph number, as required by the agency. All lines on pages in a document filed by electronic means must be double-spaced except in cover letters or attachments to a document. 3. Time of filing. a. Unless otherwise stated by the agency, a document in compliance with the rules and submitted electronically to an agency by five p.m. local time will be considered filed on the date submitted. An agency may permit submission of documents to be considered filed on the date submitted if submitted by 11:59 p.m. local time. A document in compliance with the rules and submitted electronically to a party by 11:59 p.m. local time will be considered served on the date submitted. For purposes of the time of filing, local time means local time for the receiving agency or designated hearing officer. b. Upon filing or serving a document electronically, the filing or serving party may implement that party's own method for confirmation that the document has been received. c. A party filing a document electronically must pay any filing fee as required by the agency. d. A party filing a document electronically must pay any surcharge for internal reproduction of the document as required by the agency or, if the proceeding has been assigned to a hearing officer outside the agency, as required by the designated hearing officer's agency. No surcharge payment may be required for documents twenty total pages in length or less; for this purpose, attachments are considered part of the document. A party electronically filing a document greater than twenty total pages in length must pay a per page surcharge for each page of the document in an amount and at such time as the agency or designated hearing officer's agency may require. e. If all required fees and surcharges are not paid as required by the agency or the designated hearing officer's agency, the document will be returned to the party and the party will be required to file the document again. The document will not be considered filed until proper refiling occurs. 4. Electronic service - Parties. a. If a party files a document by electronic means, the party may serve the document on the parties by electronic means if the recipient consents in writing to accept documents served electronically. Service by electronic means is not effective if the party making service learns that the attempted service did not reach the intended recipient. If a party files a document by electronic means, that party has consented to service by electronic means by the hearing officer and any other party. Consent to accept documents served electronically may be given by consent for a specific proceeding or consent for all proceedings. b. A party may designate a facsimile number or an e-mail address as the party's own address for the purpose of accepting electronic service. c. If a recipient does not consent to accept electronic service of a document, service by another means specified in the rules is required. d. For purposes of computation of time, any document electronically served must be treated as if it were mailed on the date of transmission. e. If a party files a document by electronic means and the document is confidential, in whole or in part, the document must be filed with an appropriate confidentiality statement.