Getting Notice of a Rejected Filing
After you submit forms for filing in a court case on MiFILE, you will see a screen saying “Your submission was successful.” This does not mean the court has accepted the filing yet. Within a few minutes, you will get notices from MiFILE either by e-mail or text message, depending on how you chose to get notifications. Each will say “The following document was submitted and is waiting to be processed by the [name of the court].” This means only that you have submitted your documents for filing. The court still needs to review your forms and decide whether to accept or reject them.
If the court rejects your filing, you will get a few different notifications depending on how many forms you filed, if you paid any filing fees, and your personal notification settings. For example, if you filed one form and paid a filing fee, you will get two separate notifications: a rejection of the form you filed; a payment refund notification. You will also get a separate notification for every other form you filed. If you tried to file a new case, one of the notifications will be a rejection of the party information you entered online (called the “Case Initiation Form”). Below is an example of a rejection e-mail notice.
What Happens If a Filing Is Rejected?
If you get notice that the form you tried to file was rejected, it is as if you never filed it. If you were filing to start a new case, the case will not proceed. If you were filing in an ongoing case, the case will continue without the papers you tried to file. In some cases, this may be what you want. For example, if you were trying to file a new case but later decided you do not want to proceed after all, you do not need to do anything about the rejection.
However, if you want the judge in your case to see what you were filing, you will need to fix the problem and refile the forms. Pay attention to deadlines. If you had a set time to file and your forms were rejected, you will need to refile the forms before the deadline.
What Happens to My Filing Fee?
If your filing is rejected and you paid a filing fee, some fees will be refunded. If you used a prepaid card to pay filing fees, be sure to save the card so that you do not lose the refunded fees. Please note that credit card processing fees are nonrefundable when documents are rejected by the court. If you need to file again, a new credit card processing fee will be charged. Because this credit card processing fee is nonrefundable, it is important to make sure you file your forms correctly the first time. There are resource links on the right side of many of the MiFILE webpages to help you.
Understanding Why Your Filing Was Rejected
If your filing was rejected and you want to refile, it is important to understand what was wrong so that you can fix it before filing again.
If you get e-mail notifications, the e-mail will list why the form was rejected. If you chose text notifications, log on to MiFILE and click the History tab to view your filings. If your form was rejected, it will be highlighted in red on the History page.
The common rejection reasons are listed below, along with some of the ways you can fix the problems.