(a) Under the Retirement and Social Security Law, it is frequently of great importance to a member, pensioner or employer to file certain documents in a timely manner. In many situations, the Retirement and Social Security Law provides firm deadlines by which important documents, such as benefit application forms, designation of beneficiary forms, option election forms, etc., must be filed. Under a line of cases which predated both the era during which facsimile transmission technology became commonplace and the enactment of sections 19 and 319 of the Retirement and Social Security Law, it was held that a document could not be considered “filed with the Comptroller” for the purposes of the Retirement and Social Security Law until it was actually received by the Comptroller or the Retirement System.

(b) In 1986, the principle that filing could not occur until a document was actually received was qualified by the enactment of sections 19 and 319 of the Retirement and Social Security Law. These sections provide that whenever a statute requires that document be filed with the Comptroller, as Administrative Head of the New York State and Local Retirement Systems, within a prescribed period of time or by a specified date, and such document has been mailed to the Comptroller or the Retirement System by United States Postal Service certified mail, return receipt requested, the document shall be deemed filed on the date of mailing. Sections 19 and 319 further provide that notwithstanding the fact that the filing date may be established as the date of mailing where the document is ultimately thereafter received by the Comptroller or Retirement System, no document shall be deemed filed on the date of mailing unless it is actually received by the Retirement System as a result of such mailing.

(c) Accordingly, sections 19 and 319 establish the principle that while a Retirement System document must be received by the Comptroller or the Retirement System in order to be deemed filed for the purposes of the Retirement and Social Security Law, the date of filing may be established as a date prior to the actual receipt date, where the transmission is attained via a technology that ensures that the Retirement System is able to reliably determine the date of transmission. This Part extends this principle to the transmission of documents via facsimile (“fax”) machine.