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Headrick v. Jackes-Evans Manufacturing Co.6/10/2003
Opinion Vote: REVERSED AND REMANDED.
Mooney, C.J., and Sullivan, J., concur.
Opinion:
Michael Headrick ("Appellant") appeals from an order of the Labor and Industrial Relations Commission ("Commission") dismissing his action for failure to file an Application for Review within the twenty-day statutory period as required by section 287.480.1 RSMo 2000 because the envelope in which it was mailed was erroneously postmarked. We reverse and remand to the Commission with directions to conduct a hearing to determine, from the totality of the circumstances, whether the Application was, in fact, timely mailed and, if the Commission determines the application was timely mailed, to hear the Application on the merits.
After an Award on Hearing issued August 27, 2002, before the Division of Workers' Compensation, Appellant had twenty days (until September 16) to file a timely Application for Review ("Application") of the ruling to the Commission. See section 287.480.1. An envelope containing the Application was prepared at the offices of Appellant's attorney and date-stamped at a metered mail machine in the attorney's office. Unfortunately, the envelope was erroneously postmarked as November 16, 2002, instead of September 16, 2002, which was the twentieth and last day for Appellant to mail a notice of appeal. According to an affidavit filed with the Commission, the attorney's paralegal, not realizing the envelope was improperly dated, delivered the envelope on September 16 to the United States Postal Service ("USPS") in Clayton, Missouri, and placed it in a metered mail drop-box at about 5:30 p.m., where it was to be picked up about a half hour later. Though the USPS is required by its own internal regulations to independently postmark or endorse the envelope, it did not do so in this instance; rather, the envelope was processed containing only the erroneous November postmark.
The Commission received the Application in Jefferson City on Thursday, September 19, 2002. The Missouri Attorney General's Office in St. Louis, representing the Treasurer of Missouri as Custodian of the Second Injury Fund ("Respondent"), stamped as received a copy of the Application, which was allegedly mailed simultaneously with the original, on September 17. Aware of this information, the Commission nonetheless issued an order in October dismissing the Application for Appellant's failure to comply with the statutory requirements for timely filing.
Section 287.480.1 provides that an application for review made to the Commission may be filed by mail, and, when it is received by the Commission, it will "be deemed to be filed as of the date endorsed by the United States post office on the envelope" in which the application is received. An appealing party may make a timely Application that is received by the Commission outside of the time permitted only if the papers are mailed within twenty days and the USPS endorses the mailing and delivers it to the addressee. The use of privately controlled postage meters has been accepted to allow metered mail postmarks inscribed on an envelope by a postage meter licensed by the USPS to satisfy the statutory requirement of a "date endorsed by the United States post office." Abrams v. Ohio Pacific Express , 819 S.W.2d 338, 340, 343 (Mo. banc 1991); see also Domestic Mail Manual section 144.14 (authorizing postal customers to apply for a license to possess and use postage meters). Thus, if the Application was mailed on or before September 16, subsequently endorsed by the USPS in the course of mailing, and received by the Commission, it would be considered to have been filed with the Commission within the statutory period.
In hi
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