Rule 6 - PROOF AND RULES GOVERNING PROCEDURE(a.) Claims asserted against the State, including all the allegations in a notice of claim, are treated as denied, and must be established by the claimant with satisfactory proof, or proper stipulation as hereinafter provided before an award can be made.(b.) The Commission shall not be bound by the usual common law or statutory rules of evidence. The Commission may accept and weigh, in accordance with its evidentiary value, any information that will assist the Commission in determining the factual basis of the claim.(c.) The Attorney General shall, within twenty days after a copy of the notice has been furnished his or her office, file with the Clerk a notice in writing, either denying the claim, requesting postponement of proceedings to permit negotiations with the claimant, or otherwise setting forth reasons for further investigation of the claim, and furnish the claimant or claimant's counsel of record a copy thereof. Otherwise, after said twenty-day period, the Commission may order the claim placed upon its regular docket for hearing.(d.) It shall be the duty of the claimant or claimant's counsel in claims under the regular procedure to negotiate with the Office of the Attorney General so that the claimant and the State agency and the Attorney General may be ready at the beginning of the hearing of a claim to read, if reduced to writing, or to dictate orally, if not reduced to writing, into the record such stipulations, if any, as to which the parties may have been able to agree.(e.) Where there is a controversy between a claimant and any State agency, the Commission may require each party to reduce the facts to writing and, if the parties are not in agreement as to the facts, the Commission may stipulate the questions of fact in issue and require written answers to the said stipulated questions.(f.) All claims shall be heard and considered by the Commission, sitting without a jury.(g.) Claims not exceeding the sum of $20,000.00 may be heard and considered by a sitting judge individually.W. Va. R. Leg. Claims Comm. R. 6