SCOTUS Decision Allows Federal Employees to Seek Appellate Review of Claims After Statutory Deadline

The United States Supreme Court issued its ruling on Thursday in Harrow v. Department of Defense. The decision directly applies to federal sector employers, but it has broader applications for all final decisions a federal agency makes that can be appealed to a federal court.

In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court held that the 60-day deadline for a federal employee to petition the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to review a final decision of the Merit Systems Protection Board (“MSPB”) is not jurisdictional. In other words, the Federal Circuit Court had the authority to review the claim even though it was filed outside the 60-day deadline.

Background
Petitioner Stuart Harrow was a Department of Defense (“DOD”) ​employee subject to a furlough. Because he was a federal employee, he had access to a multi-step appeal process to challenge the employment decision. He first challenged his furlough before an administrative law judge, who affirmed the DOD’s decision. Harrow then timely appealed to the MSPB, which affirmed the administrative judge’s decision. Next, he appealed to the Federal Circuit Court. Although the statute required Harrow to file this appeal within 60 days of the MSPB’s final ruling, he did not file it until 128 days later.

The Federal Circuit dismissed Harrow’s petition for review as untimely because it was filed after the statutory 60-day deadline. Because the Federal Circuit Court viewed the statutory deadline as jurisdictional, it held it could only consider whether a petition was filed in a timely manner and not any individual circumstances surrounding a late petition.

The Supreme Court’s Ruling
Before the Supreme Court, Harrow acknowledged that the Federal Circuit relied on its precedent in reaching the decision, but the Petitioner argued the ruling was contrary to recent decisions from the Supreme Court and other circuits holding analogous filing deadlines to be non-jurisdictional, including the deadline to file for judicial review of a final decision of the Social Security Administration and the deadline to appeal an IRS determination to the Tax Court.

The Court rejected the Government’s argument that the 60-day limit was jurisdictional and held that courts should not interpret statutes of limitations as a jurisdictional bar without a clear mandate from Congress. According to the Court, courts may generally excuse a party’s noncompliance with a rule for equitable reasons if the rule is procedural rather than jurisdictional. Importantly, a party opponent must object to a party’s noncompliance with a procedural rule, or the opponent risks forfeiting or waiving the objection. The Court reiterated one exception to the rule that statutes establishing time limitations require a clear statement from Congress that the limitation is jurisdictional. Even absent such a statement, time limits related to appeals from one Article III[1] court to another are jurisdictional.

Finally, the Government argued that even if the 60-day limit is non-jurisdictional, the Federal Circuit Court still had no discretion to excuse the late filing for equitable reasons. Although the Supreme Court did not rule on this issue because it was not properly before the Court, the Court stated that the Government “must contend with another high bar” in arguing that a court could not waive the deadline for equitable reasons.

Looking Forward
As a best practice, companies defending a case should always carefully analyze potential procedural objections at the onset of any action and raise objections in a timely manner. Failure to timely raise objections could cause a defendant to risk forfeiting applicable arguments.

As the Court stated in Harrow, an argument that a court cannot excuse late filing of a non-jurisdictional time limit is a “high bar,” and courts are likely to give strong consideration to whether equitable concerns dictate that a party who has missed a deadline be allowed to proceed. Defendants who want to argue that a missed deadline should not be excused must, therefore, be prepared with very compelling reasons to support their argument.


[1] Supreme Court justices and federal circuit and district judges are often called “Article III judges” because they are appointed under and subject to the language in Article III of the Constitution.