Opinion ID: 3003516
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: 2d 1, 6 n.1 (N.J. 1996).

Text: Other courts, although stopping short of adopting a rebuttable presumption of receipt, have concluded that a fax confirmation at least creates an issue of fact about whether the fax was received. See Lincoln Gen. Ins. Co. v. Access Claims Adm’rs, Inc., 596 F. Supp. 2d 1351, 1364-65 (E.D. Cal. 2009); Ebersol v. Unemployment Appeals Comm’n, 845 So. 2d 945, 947 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2003); cf. Kennell v. Gates, 215 F.3d 825, 829 (8th Cir. 2000) (explaining that 8 No. 08-3721 factfinder may infer that “information sent via a reliable means,” including fax, was received, so long as the means of communication is “accepted as generally reliable” and “the particular message is properly dispatched”). In a scenario nearly identical to the one here, the court in Ebersol explained that just because an agency does not process a request does not mean that the agency never received the faxed document communicating that request. 845 So. 2d at 947. To conclude otherwise, the court reasoned, would excuse agencies that permit filing by fax from developing careful procedures for docketing such filings. Id. The few cases that, at first blush, appear to lend support to CLM’s position ultimately are of little help. The Federal Circuit, for example, has said that, “[p]roof of message exit from a transmitting machine cannot serve as a proxy for proof of actual receipt of the sent message by a remote receiving terminal.” Riley & Ephriam Constr. Co. v. United States, 408 F.3d 1369, 1372-73 (Fed. Cir. 2005). That proposition is true enough in the abstract, but it describes neither the case before this court nor even the facts before the Federal Circuit. In Riley & Ephriam, the United States sought to establish that a contractor had failed to timely appeal the denial of its claim as measured by the date on which the contracting officer purportedly sent the adverse decision by fax to the contractor’s attorney. Id. at 1371. To prove that counsel actually received the fax, the government submitted a fax cover sheet, its own phone records showing a call to the fax number it had on file for counsel, and a (presumably hearsay) statement from the contracting officer reNo. 08-3721 9 counting that the fax machine had indicated that the transmission was successful. Id. at 1372. The lawyer denied receiving the fax and stated that his firm’s fax number had been changed before the date of the adverse decision. Id. at 1372. In concluding that the government’s evidence was insufficient from which to infer receipt, the court noted that the government had not produced a confirmation of transmission from its fax machine and thus expressly declined to address whether such a confirmation would have raised a rebuttable presumption of receipt. Id.; see also Home Mut. Fire Ins. Co. v. Hampton, 986 S.W.2d 93, 94-95 (Ark. 1999) (concluding that affidavits stating that fax was successfully transmitted were insufficient evidence of receipt). We have found only one case where a court expressly held that a confirmation from the sender’s fax machine was not evidence that the fax was received. See Wandrey v. Etchison, 210 S.W.3d 892, 894, 896 (Ark. 2005). This decision, however, does not explore the significance of a fax confirmation; instead, it rests entirely on the court’s position that counsel submitting court filings by fax have a duty to follow up with the court clerk to ensure that a fax was received. Id. at 894-95. Although fax confirmations may not always be con- clusive proof of receipt, we believe that in this case—where it was not the plaintiff who had to prove receipt, but the defendant who had to prove the absence of re- ceipt—the fax confirmation creates a factual dispute sufficient to preclude summary judgment. Whether it was plaintiff’s counsel or his assistant who faxed the charge, the fax confirmation independently verifies that 10 No. 08-3721 a three-page document was sent from counsel’s office to the EEOC before 4:30 p.m. on April 12, the final day for timely filing. As the district court observed, the confirmation itself does not prove the content of the document, but counsel swore in an affidavit that the fax consisted of Laouini’s two-page charge and a cover sheet, and there is no evidence to undermine his representation.1 And although at summary judgment the plaintiff did not present evidence establishing that confirmation of a successful transmission necessarily means that the document printed out on the other end, a reasonable factfinder could certainly infer as much. It is commonly understood that “success” in this context means that the two fax machines have performed an electronic “handshake” and that the data has been transmitted from one machine to the other. See, e.g., INFORMATION S ECURITY M ANAGEMENT H ANDBOOK 277 (Harold F. Tipton & Micki Krause eds., 6th ed. 2008) (“[O]ne significant advantage the fax has over other forms of data exchange is that the 1 Although CLM has not raised the issue, there is a question whether counsel’s role as a fact witness on this point is problematic. The Southern District of Indiana has adopted the Indiana Rules of Professional Conduct, see S.D. I ND . L OC . R. 83.5(g), which prohibit a lawyer from serving as an advocate at a trial in which he is likely to be a necessary witness unless the testimony relates to an uncontested issue, relates to the nature and value of counsel’s legal services, or disqualification of the lawyer would cause substantial hardship to the client, see I ND . R ULES OF P ROF’L C ONDUCT R. 3.7. Whether counsel would be a “necessary” witness at trial and whether any of the exceptions would apply are questions for the district court to address. No. 08-3721 11 sender immediately knows if the transmission was successful. . . . [A]ll fax machines have the capability to print a fax confirmation sheet after each fax sent. This sheet confirms if the fax has been successfully transmitted . . . .”); How to Understand Faxes, http://www.how-to.com/article/ details/160 (“Once your fax has been delivered, your system . . . will create a page with the end result of the transmission. If the fax was sent successfully, the page will say “Okay.”); How to Get Confirmation of a Sent Fax, http://www.ehow.com/how_2015874_confirm-fax-sent.ht ml (“A confirmation report is a document confirming that your faxes were sent and received.”). The fax confirmation is thus strong evidence of receipt, and, contrary to the district court’s conclusion, CLM offered no evidence to meet its burden of proving nonreceipt. In this court CLM asserts that the EEOC “denies ever having received the fax,” but this representation mischaracterizes the evidence. The EEOC never “denied” anything; it simply offered up Laouini’s file, which does not contain a faxed copy of the charge of discrimination. The district court concluded that this ended the factual dispute, but the court did not address the possibility that the charge was received but misplaced or simply discarded when the mailed copy arrived the following Monday. Indeed, CLM did not produce any evidence from the EEOC about its internal fax-handling and retention policies. The author of the memo in the EEOC file—the investigator assigned to review the merits of the charge—does not purport to have any involvement in the handling of fax transmissions received in his office, nor does the author of that memo say that he made any 12 No. 08-3721 effort to discuss with those who are responsible for incoming faxes whether one was received from Laouini’s lawyer or even whether any fax was received late in the afternoon on April 12. A bureaucratic officer’s uninformed belief that a document was not received is no more conclusive than a fax-transmission record indicating that it was. Cf. In re Longardner & Assocs., Inc., 855 F.2d 455, 459 (7th Cir. 1988) (explaining that denial of receipt does not rebut presumption of mail delivery but creates question of fact); Nimz Transp., Inc., 505 F.2d at 179 (concluding that absence of document in clerk’s file is insufficient to rebut presumption that document mailed was “received, and thereby filed”). Because a reasonable factfinder could weigh the evidence in this case and conclude that the EEOC received Laouini’s charge but simply lost, misplaced, or otherwise failed to timely process it, summary judgment was inappropriate. Finally, CLM spends much of its brief arguing that a charge of discrimination submitted to the EEOC by fax can never be timely because the EEOC’s regulations do not expressly authorize fax filing. CLM does not cite any regulation prohibiting fax filing (there is none), but cites instead to 29 C.F.R. § 1601.8, which governs where a charge of discrimination may be filed and says only that a charge “may be made in person or by mail at any office of the Commission or with any designated representative of the Commission.” CLM did not raise this argument before the district court and it is therefore waived. See Hicks v. Midwest Transit, Inc., 500 F.3d 647, 652 (7th Cir. 2007). In any event, the argument lacks merit. At the time of the disputed events, the EEOC’s Indianapolis No. 08-3721 13 office accepted charges of discrimination by fax, gave out a fax number designated for this purpose, and had a policy of processing faxed charges on the day of receipt. The cited regulation is silent on faxes, and, as Laouini points out, it addresses where, not how, to file a charge. The local agency’s interpretation permitting charges of discrimination to be lodged by fax is reasonable and therefore is entitled to substantial deference from this court. See Martin v. Occupational Safety & Health Review Comm’n, 499 U.S. 144, 150 (1991); Clancy v. Geithner, 559 F.3d 595, 605-06 (7th Cir. 2009).