When may an agency make a disposition by word, phone, text message, fax or email instead of a document, and what must it do afterwards?
General information · Not legal advice
Material to check
In practice material of this kind, we read the paper recording how the disposition was actually delivered, such as a call log, message record or fax receipt, and any request by the party for a document, because the provision turns on the urgency, the minor character of the matter and that request.
These are types of material to look for, not evidence already verified by PRO SE.
Where readings differ
One reading holds that an agency may dispose by a method other than a document only where disposing urgently is necessary for public safety or public welfare, or where the matter is minor, and that where the party then asks, the agency must give a document on the disposition without delay.
Another reading notes that the provision does not say what makes a matter urgent for public safety or welfare, nor what makes it minor, so the file has to carry facts showing which of those two grounds applied to the particular disposition.
Your judgment
If the disposition was delivered by phone and the file shows no request for a document, what facts could still show the matter was minor or genuinely urgent?
PRO SE does not make this decision or keep a case record on this public site.When to reconsider
We look at this again if the provision is amended to define which matters count as minor or urgent, or if a decision clarifies what the agency must put in the document it owes on request.