Having led the way into the twenty-first century in 2005-06 with deployment of electronic filing (“eFiling,” or “eJCC”), the OJCC has continued to revise and leverage this process. In 2011-12, the OJCC began to enforce the mandatory use of electronic filing by represented parties. In 2011-12 programming was added to afford eFiling access to all users, represented or not. In 2012-13, programming was completed to allow electronic service of pleadings among and between lawyers and insurance carriers. The result is a neatly integrated electronic filing and service system that is exemplary.
In 2016-17, five hundred eighty-three thousand four hundred eighty-five (583,485) documents were e-filed with the OJCC. The filing volumes are described in this chart.
To measure the success of e-filing, parameters were developed to assign value to the inbound filings based upon postage and supplies saved by the filer. There is also an associated savings to the state because staff no longer has to open envelopes, remove and straighten documents, and then file the paper documents for future use. Using those parameters, first described in the 2006-07 OJCC Annual Report, the cumulative end-user savings to date generated by this eFiling system, by the end of fiscal 2016-17, were at least three million one hundred fifty-eight thousand nine hundred dollars ($3,158,900).
That is money in the pockets of the OJCC customers. The total savings to the state is four million nine hundred sixty-seven thousand nine hundred sixty-eight dollars ($4,967,968). The combination is over eight million dollars in savings, and the total OJCC investment to date is only approximately 1.2 million dollars. The eJCC return on investment from eFiling is about 760%.
Electronic service was added to the eJCC platform in January 2013. This feature allows significant volumes of documents to be served electronically upon opposing counsel and insurance carriers in conjunction with electronic filing. This process change has enabled an additional annual savings to practitioners and carriers in excess of one million dollars due to the ability to serve each other documents electronically. The eService savings, combined with eFiling savings is thus well in excess of ten million dollars.
This achievement is particularly gratifying in light of issues and complications experienced by other states’ systems that have expended large special fund allocations building and deploying electronic filing. According to Workcompcentral.com, these states have spent far more developing their case management and litigation platforms. Notably, their systems are for all workers’ compensation claims in their respective states, while the OJCC system is for litigated claims only.
Pennsylvania is reported to have spent $45.1 million initially, and contracted for three years of support and maintenance at $5.1 million per year. California has reportedly spent $61 million to deploy their case management and electronic filing platform. The OJCC has deployed its eFiling, eService, and case management platforms using existing budget funds. The total expenditures to date are approximately $1.2 million.
If current trends in electronic filing growth continue, the annual document volume can be expected to exceed one million documents in about ten years. The OJCC is focused on bringing electronic service to employers, and developing the resources to accommodate the expected growth in both filings and system use.