The commission receives documents for administrative purposes, and such receipt alone does not constitute filing or legal acceptance of a document.

1. (1) Compliance review. Upon receipt, the commission will review a submission to determine whether it complies with applicable filing requirements prior to accepting it for filing and assigning a docket number, if applicable.

2. (2) Notice of, and opportunity to correct, noncompliance. The commission will identify any areas of noncompliance in the submission and will notify the person who made the submission within two business days, or as soon thereafter as practicable, of any areas of noncompliance that require corrective action before the commission can accept the document for filing. The notification will indicate one of the following:

   1. (a) A requirement to submit one or more additional documents (e.g., a cover letter, certificate of service, etc.);
   2. (b) A requirement to resubmit the document with the deficiencies corrected within a specified period of time; or

   3. (c) Rejection of the document and its return to the sender.

      The commission will consider corrected documents to have been filed on the date the original documents were submitted if the deficiencies are not substantive or otherwise do not impair or hamper the commission's ability to timely review, analyze, or act on the merits of the submission. Otherwise, the commission will consider the documents to have been filed on the date the corrected documents are submitted.

3. (3) No waiver of noncompliance. By accepting a submission for filing in a docket or assigning a docket number, the commission does not necessarily certify that the submission complies with all filing requirements or waive the commission's ability to subsequently reject a document as deficient or require deficiencies to be corrected; provided that in the absence of extraordinary circumstances, the commission will not reject a document for failure to comply with applicable filing requirements more than five business days after the document has been submitted, and documents are deemed accepted and filed unless the commission provides notice of noncompliance within that time period.

[Statutory Authority: RCW 80.01.040 and 80.04.160. WSR 17-06-051 (General Order R-588), § 480-07-141, filed 2/28/17, effective 3/31/17; WSR 06-16-053 (Docket A-050802, General Order R-536), § 480-07-141, filed 7/27/06, effective 8/27/06.]