A nightmare for a Florida law firm could be a wake-up call for New Jersey attorneys. A Florida appeals court recently refused to overturn an order denying the reopening of an earlier order assessing attorneys' fees that could be in seven figures, which the law firm had intended to appeal. The problem was that its spam filter culled and deleted the original order, and the time to appeal had long since passed.

The appellate court noted that the firm had made a conscious choice to use the defective spam filter system, which lacked safeguards that permitted review and restoration of deleted emails. The firm specifically rejected an IT consultant's advice to install a backup system costing $700 to $1,200 per year. Instead, the firm chose a system that would drop and permanently delete spam email without notice to the recipient.

This case, Emerald Coast Utilities Auth. v. Bear Marcus Pointe, LLC, (Case No. 1D15-5714, District Court of Appeal of Florida, First District), noted that the choice of the spam filter by counsel could not fit within the “mistake, inadvertence, surprise or excusable neglect” standard that equates with New Jersey's, but from the discussion in the opinion appears to be interpreted even more leniently than ours. The decision nonetheless reiterated that a “conscious decision to use a defective email system without any safeguards or oversight in order to save money … cannot constitute excusable neglect.” The court further stated that with such a system, counsel should have checked the trial court's electronic docket periodically to see if the order had been entered.

What we can learn from this case is that our “trash,” “spam” or “junk” folders, and other operations of our filters, must be periodically reviewed, lest we or our malpractice carriers be left holding a million-dollar bag similar to that of this hapless Florida firm.

A nightmare for a Florida law firm could be a wake-up call for New Jersey attorneys. A Florida appeals court recently refused to overturn an order denying the reopening of an earlier order assessing attorneys' fees that could be in seven figures, which the law firm had intended to appeal. The problem was that its spam filter culled and deleted the original order, and the time to appeal had long since passed.

The appellate court noted that the firm had made a conscious choice to use the defective spam filter system, which lacked safeguards that permitted review and restoration of deleted emails. The firm specifically rejected an IT consultant's advice to install a backup system costing $700 to $1,200 per year. Instead, the firm chose a system that would drop and permanently delete spam email without notice to the recipient.

This case, Emerald Coast Utilities Auth. v. Bear Marcus Pointe, LLC, (Case No. 1D15-5714, District Court of Appeal of Florida, First District), noted that the choice of the spam filter by counsel could not fit within the “mistake, inadvertence, surprise or excusable neglect” standard that equates with New Jersey's, but from the discussion in the opinion appears to be interpreted even more leniently than ours. The decision nonetheless reiterated that a “conscious decision to use a defective email system without any safeguards or oversight in order to save money … cannot constitute excusable neglect.” The court further stated that with such a system, counsel should have checked the trial court's electronic docket periodically to see if the order had been entered.

What we can learn from this case is that our “trash,” “spam” or “junk” folders, and other operations of our filters, must be periodically reviewed, lest we or our malpractice carriers be left holding a million-dollar bag similar to that of this hapless Florida firm.