The word “glitch,” may have entered common usage during the early space program,1 and it usually means a minor or technical malfunction in a computer or electronic system.2 The New York State Courts Electronic Filing System (NYSCEF) allows for the commencement of actions or proceedings over the Internet, and glitches would appear to be inevitable. If we are to describe such missteps in the commencement process, “glitch” has a much nicer ring to it than “nonwaivable jurisdictional defect.”
The Appellate Division, Second Department, recently found “glitches associated with the initiation of the new e-filing system,” responsible for a plaintiff’s commencement problem and permitted correction of the error pursuant to CPLR 2001. CPLR 2001 defines such minor (meaning correctable) issues as mistakes, omissions, defects or irregularities, and in Grskovic v. Holmes3 the court applied CPLR 2001 to forgive, nunc pro tunc, a pretty significant commencement by e-filing mistake.
