Court Response of Failure is the automated rejection message from Tyler Technologies' e-filing platforms — eFileCA, eFileGA, eFileIL, eFileIN, eFileMD, eFileNV, eFileTX and eFileVA. It means the court's system hit a document format it cannot process. It does not tell you what is wrong, and the cause is almost always inside the PDF. Here are the documented culprits, with the fix for each.
| Cause | Detail | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Wrong page size | Pages must be standard 8.5″ × 11″ letter; oversize pages trip processing | Re-export or rescale to letter before filing |
| Unflattened fillable forms | Interactive form fields are not processed; the system needs static content | Flatten the form (fields → static page content) before submitting |
| Incompatible creation software | PDFs from Corel products — WordPerfect, PDF Fusion — are the documented offenders | Re-create the PDF from Word or another mainstream generator, or print to PDF |
| Password protection / security restrictions | Password-protected and permission-locked files cannot be processed | Remove all security — see removing PDF security |
| PDF/A format | Support guidance lists PDF/A among formats that can trip these portals — in practice usually a malformed PDF/A rather than a compliant one | Verify the file genuinely conforms (or re-export as ordinary PDF if your court doesn't require PDF/A) — see the state requirement guides for courts that do mandate PDF/A |
| Excessive scan resolution | Over 300 dpi creates files large enough to be rejected | Rescan at 300 dpi, black-and-white or grayscale |
| Unintelligible images | Illegible or landscape-oriented photos; systems expect portrait 8.5″ × 11″ | Rotate to portrait, 300 dpi, legible |
| Interactive elements & hyperlinks | Embedded URLs, local-file shortcuts and link annotations can cause processing errors | Strip interactive link elements before filing |
| Unsupported fonts | Symbolic fonts — ZapfDingbats, Wingdings, Symbol — may not be recognized | Use standard text fonts; check local rules for accepted fonts |
It surprises filers: some courts require PDF/A (Florida's portal is built around it; NY AD1 demands certified PDF/A) while Tyler-portal troubleshooting lists PDF/A as a rejection trigger. Both can be true — the difference is between compliant PDF/A and files that merely claim it. A converter's "PDF/A" label means nothing to a validator; the reliable path is to verify conformance before filing, whichever way your court leans. Our no-Acrobat guide covers free verification.