DWC ADVISES OF DELAYED PROCESSING TIMES DURING REGIONAL STAY-AT-HOME ORDERS

GMK ALERT – Today’s News You Can Use

ISSUE DATE:  Friday, December 11, 2020

IN THIS ALERT:  DWC ADVISES OF DELAYED PROCESSING TIMES DURING REGIONAL STAY-AT-HOME ORDERS

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, the DWC has maintained a limited staff in each of its 24 district offices and has not been accepting walk-in requests or walk-through filings. Parties who are not e-filers have been required to send their documents to the DWC district offices for processing through the U.S. mail.

Due to increasing infection rates and recent Regional Stay-At-Home Orders, the DWC expects a further reduction in staff over the next three weeks. This will result in a fewer amount of people to process the documents that are mailed to the district offices, which may result in a delay of processing documents that are not electronically filed.

In order to reduce processing times, the DWC encourages all parties to e-file or JET file their documents.

Documents which are subject to statutory time limits and cannot be filed electronically, may be filed via email directly to the district office having venue. Email addresses for each of the 24 district offices can be found at the office locations page on the DWC website.

What This Means for You

The DWC does not anticipate the reduction of staff at the district offices to affect any of its critical functions over the next three weeks, such as holding hearings, trials, or processing electronically filed documents.

However, expected staff reductions due to the Stay-At-Home Orders could delay the processing of documents that are mailed to the district offices, and impact the response times for settlement approvals, as well as the filings of documents that do not have any legally mandated time limits, such as, but not limited to Petitions for Dismissal, Petitions for Joinder, Petitions to Transfer Venue, and Petitions to Quash. 

Steven Plesa, Esq.

GMK Woodland Hills