{"id":2035,"date":"2007-07-30T11:54:00","date_gmt":"2007-07-30T17:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/07\/federal-examples-of-e-mail-as-a-legal-form-of-writing\/"},"modified":"2007-07-30T11:54:00","modified_gmt":"2007-07-30T17:54:00","slug":"federal-examples-of-e-mail-as-a-legal-form-of-writing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/07\/federal-examples-of-e-mail-as-a-legal-form-of-writing\/","title":{"rendered":"Federal examples of e-mail as a legal form of writing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Since state Rep. Joseph Cervantes<\/a> told me last week he believes federal law does state that e-mails are legal forms of writing, I\u2019ve come across a few examples that seem to back him up. <\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Cervantes\u2019 comments came in the context of me writing about New Mexico State University\u2019s<\/a> assertion that e-mail is generally not a valid way to request documents under the New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act<\/a>, which states that requests, to trigger the requirements in the act, must be written.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

My frustration with that assertion by NMSU is part of a larger complaint I have with the university\u2019s skirting of government transparency laws, which you can read about by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Cervantes, an attorney who has worked closely with government transparency laws in his legislative role, disagreed with NMSU last week, telling me \u201cthere\u2019s lots of federal law that says it is a writing.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve come across some examples. The federal Rules of Evidence<\/a> state that \u201c\u2018writings\u2019 and \u2018recordings\u2019 consist of letters, words or numbers, or their equivalent, set down by handwriting, typewriting, printing, photostating, photography, magnetic impulse, mechanical or electronic recording, or other form of data compilation.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Surely, that includes e-mails.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

A recent federal court ruling, citing a dictionary definition and the federal Rules of Evidence, found that the definition of \u201cwriting\u201d includes \u201cany expressive format, set down by hand or typewriting, mechanical or electronic transmissions,\u201d and pointed out that, in today\u2019s society, it\u2019s common for parties to \u201cbind themselves through mechanical or electronic media.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

In addition, a 2003 article published in American Law Reports<\/a>, and written by John E. Theuman, examined a number of court cases related to the Statute of Frauds<\/a> and found that the issue of whether e-mail is a legal form of writing is often handled on a case-by-case basis but, in general, e-mails that don\u2019t include the typed signature of the writer aren\u2019t valid, but those that do include a typed signature are valid.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

As I\u2019ve pointed out before, the Attorney General\u2019s Office<\/a> says that, though there is some ambiguity in the law, governments should treat e-mail requests for records as valid. Cervantes says he\u2019ll introduce legislation to make that clear, if necessary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since state Rep. Joseph Cervantes told me last week he believes federal law does state that e-mails are legal forms of writing, I\u2019ve come across a few examples that seem to back him up. Cervantes\u2019 comments came in the context of me writing about New Mexico State University\u2019s assertion that e-mail is generally not a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2035\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}