In the 

United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ 

No. 18-2562 

SLOBODANKA NESTOROVIC, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v.

METROPOLITAN WATER RECLAMATION DISTRICT OF GREATER 

CHICAGO, 

Defendant-Appellee. 

____________________ 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the 

Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. 

No. 1:17-cv-6807 — Rebecca R. Pallmeyer, Judge. 

____________________ 

SUBMITTED APRIL 10, 2019* — DECIDED JUNE 11, 2019 

____________________ 

Before BARRETT, BRENNAN, and SCUDDER, Circuit Judges. 

PER CURIAM. This case turns on the requirement in 28 

U.S.C. § 2107(c) that a litigant show excusable neglect or good 

 * We have agreed to decide this case without oral argument because 

the briefs and record adequately present the facts and legal arguments, 

and oral argument would not significantly aid the court. FED. R. APP. P. 

34(a)(2)(C). 
2 No. 18-2562 

cause to file an appeal after the deadline for doing so has 

passed. The district court dismissed Slobodanka Nestorovic’s 

discrimination claims against her employer and the deadline 

to appeal expired without Nestorovic appealing. Nestorovic 

then moved for an extension of time to file a notice of appeal, 

and the district court granted her motion without making any 

finding as to whether Nestorovic had made the required 

showing that excusable neglect or good cause justified missing the original deadline. Because this showing is required by 

an act of Congress—§ 2107(c), in particular—the necessity for 

Nestorovic to have shown excusable neglect or good cause 

serves as a prerequisite to our having appellate jurisdiction. 

As the record below contained no evidence of excusable neglect or good cause for Nestorovic’s tardiness, we dismiss 

Nestorovic’s appeal for lack of jurisdiction. 

I 

In 2015, the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of 

Greater Chicago hired Slobodanka Nestorovic as an assistant 

civil engineer. Nestorovic initially did well in the position, but 

later lost her job for allegedly poor performance. Nestorovic 

responded by filing a discrimination charge with the Equal 

Employment Opportunity Commission. She then received 

permission to sue and brought sex and disability discrimination claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and the 

Americans with Disabilities Act against the Water Reclamation District. 

The district court dismissed her case on May 16, 2018 for 

failure to comply with Title VII’s filing requirements. Nestorovic then had 30 days to file a notice to appeal—until June 

15. See 28 U.S.C. § 2107(a); FED. R. APP. P. 4(a)(1)(A). She 

missed this deadline. 
No. 18-2562 3

Instead, on July 13, Nestorovic asked the district court to 

extend her time to appeal. Section 2107(c) allows such an extension in certain circumstances: “The district court may, 

upon motion filed not later than 30 days after the expiration 

of the time otherwise set for bringing appeal, extend the time 

for appeal upon a showing of excusable neglect or good 

cause.” Rule 4(a)(5)(A) of the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure implements § 2107(c) and likewise allows the district 

court to extend the time to file an appeal if a party shows excusable neglect or good cause and moves for the extension no 

later than 30 days after the appeal deadline has expired. 

Nestorovic filed her motion to extend the time to appeal 

within the 30 days permitted by § 2107(c). Although timely, 

her motion offered little to explain what excusable neglect or 

good cause warranted the requested extension. Nestorovic 

explained only that she was “actively searching for attorneys 

willing to take the case on contingency” and had been “advised very recently that [prospective] counsel could not file an 

appeal before reviewing filings to date, which would take several weeks.” The district court granted the requested extension of time, saying only that the extension was warranted “in 

these circumstances.” The district court also construed Nestorovic’s motion as a notice of appeal. 

Nestorovic contends in her jurisdictional statement that 

her appeal is timely because she received an extension of time 

from the district court. For its part, the Water Reclamation 

District filed a brief opposing Nestorovic’s appeal on the merits while agreeing that the appeal was timely. After we questioned the completeness of its jurisdictional statement, however, the Water Reclamation District argued for the first time 

in an amended jurisdictional statement that the appeal must 
4 No. 18-2562 

be dismissed because Nestorovic had not shown excusable 

neglect or good cause to justify the extension of time to appeal. 

The question before us, then, is whether the showing of 

excusable neglect or good cause required under § 2107(c) is 

jurisdictional, and whether Nestorovic made that showing in 

the district court. 

II 

A 

In recent years the Supreme Court has undertaken to clarify the meaning of the word “jurisdiction,” a term that has 

been subject to frequent and sometimes imprecise use. See 

Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Envʹt, 523 U.S. 83, 90 (1998). Two 

of those decisions combine to resolve this appeal. 

In Bowles v. Russell, 551 U.S. 205 (2007), the Supreme Court 

held that an appellate court has no authority to consider an 

appeal filed after the period allowed by statute. In this way, 

the statutory deadline within which a notice of appeal must 

be filed is jurisdictional. See id. at 213 (explaining that 

“[b]ecause Congress specifically limited the amount of time 

by which district courts can extend the notice-of-appeal period in § 2107(c),” the court of appeals lacked jurisdiction over 

the tardy appeal). And because courts lack authority to create 

equitable exceptions to jurisdictional requirements, they cannot excuse a party’s noncompliance even when extraordinary 

circumstances present themselves. See id. at 214. 

In holding in Bowles that statutory time limits for taking an 

appeal are jurisdictional, the Court distinguished statutorilyprescribed time limits from other limitations found in court 

rules: while only Congress may determine a lower federal 
No. 18-2562 5

court’s subject-matter jurisdiction, court-adopted procedural 

rules may be relaxed in the exercise of discretion. See id.

at 211–12. This very distinction received further illumination 

ten years later in Hamer v. Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago, 138 S. Ct. 13 (2017). 

In Hamer, the Court reinforced not only that a provision 

governing the time to appeal set by Congress qualifies as jurisdictional, but also that failure to comply with such a time 

prescription “deprives a court of adjudicatory authority over 

the case, necessitating dismissal—a ‘drastic’ result.” Id. at 17 

(quoting Henderson ex rel. Henderson v. Shinseki, 562 U.S. 428, 

435 (2011)). These statutory time limits are not subject to 

waiver or forfeiture and may be raised at any time, with 

courts even shouldering the obligation to notice jurisdictional 

issues and address them on their own initiative. See id.

The Court went further in Hamer and explained that claimprocessing rules—those not prescribed by Congress—were 

different. Id. Those rules must be enforced if properly invoked 

but otherwise may be waived or forfeited. Id. The Court therefore vacated our prior ruling that Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(a)(5)(C) imposed a jurisdictional limit on the power of 

a district court to grant an extension of time to appeal longer 

than 30 days—a time limit not rooted in § 2107. Id. at 21–22. 

Because the time prescription found the Rule 4(a)(5)(C) was 

“absent from the U.S. Code,” it was not jurisdictional. Id. at 

21. Hamer told us, in short, that supplemental or implementing provisions in the Rules of Appellate Procedure are not jurisdictional. Id. 

After Bowles and Hamer, the controlling legal standard is 

clear: “If a time prescription governing the transfer of adjudicatory authority from one Article III court to another appears 
6 No. 18-2562 

in a statute, the limitation is jurisdictional; otherwise, the time 

specification fits within the claim-processing category.” 

Id. at 20. 

B 

The application of this framework and Hamer in particular

to this case is straightforward. The limitation at issue here is 

set forth in a statute and speaks to the court’s adjudicatory 

authority. Under § 2107(a), a party must file a notice of appeal 

within 30 days of the entry of the judgment being appealed, 

“[e]xcept as otherwise provided in this section.” Section 2107(c), in turn, allows an extension of time to file a notice 

of appeal upon “motion filed not later than 30 days after the 

expiration of the time otherwise set for bringing appeal” and 

“a showing of excusable neglect or good cause.” This limitation comes from the U.S. Code and is jurisdictional. See 

Hamer, 138 S. Ct. at 21. While Rule 4(a)(5)(A) likewise contains 

this requirement, the jurisdictional nature of the limitation 

comes from its presence in § 2107, which lays out the requirements for seeking review in a court of appeals. 

The soundness of our conclusion that a showing of excusable neglect or good cause is jurisdictional finds further support in the Supreme Court’s decision just this term in Fort 

Bend County v. Davis, No. 18-525, 2019 WL 2331306 (U.S. June 

3, 2019). There the Court sounded the reminder that not all 

statutory requirements are jurisdictional, as some requirements embodied in statute speak not to the court’s authority 

to entertain a case but instead to a party’s procedural obligations. See id. at *6 (concluding that Title VII’s charge-filing requirement was not jurisdictional but instead a claim-processing rule). 
No. 18-2562 7

The requirements of § 2107 not only are statutory but also 

plainly delineate the circumstances under which a party may 

seek judicial review in a court of appeals. The section first creates a 30-day period within which a party must appeal and 

provides that no appeal can be heard if a party misses that 

deadline, unless the party satisfies an exception expressly 

provided in the statute. 28 U.S.C. § 2107(a). From there, the 

section proceeds to lay out various circumstances under 

which a party may appeal outside of that time limit, including 

by filing a timely motion for an extension and showing excusable neglect or good cause. Id. § 2107(c). In this way, § 2107(c) 

embodies a statutory “prescription delineating the adjudicatory authority of courts.” Fort Bend County, 2019 WL 2331306, 

at *6. Section 2701(c)’s requirements, including the need to 

show excusable neglect or good cause to file an appeal outside 

of the original deadline, are thus jurisdictional. 

That the requirements of § 2107(c) are jurisdictional has 

clear consequences in this case. Most especially, it does not 

matter that the Water Reclamation District initially did not argue that Nestorovic had failed to show excusable neglect or 

good cause: § 2107(c)’s requirement of a showing of excusable 

neglect or good cause is jurisdictional and cannot be waived. 

See Bowles, 551 U.S. at 213 (“[B]ecause Bowles’ error is one of 

jurisdictional magnitude, he cannot rely on forfeiture or 

waiver to excuse his lack of compliance with the statute’s time 

limitations.”). 

C 

All that is left for us to determine is whether the district 

court abused its discretion by concluding that an extension 

was warranted in these circumstances. Because the record 
8 No. 18-2562 

contained no finding or evidence of excusable neglect or good 

cause for the missed deadline, we conclude that it did. 

A court abuses its discretion when the record contains no 

evidence on which it could have rationally based its decision 

or when the decision rests on an erroneous view of the law. 

See James v. Eli, 889 F.3d 320, 328 (7th Cir. 2018); see also 

United States v. Smith, 860 F.3d 508, 516 (7th Cir. 2017) (“Before we can conclude that a court did not abuse its discretion, 

we have to satisfy ourselves that the court exercised its discretion, that is, that the court considered the factors relevant to 

that exercise.”). Here, we do not know whether the district 

court applied the proper legal standard because it did not 

mention excusable neglect or good cause, cite the applicable 

statute, or look to the relevant factors—such as the length of 

the delay and its impact on judicial proceedings and whether 

the movant acted in good faith. See Satkar Hosp. v. Fox Television Holdings, 767 F.3d 701, 707 (7th Cir. 2014). All the record 

contains is a brief statement that the extension was justified 

“in these circumstances.” 

We will sometimes remand a case for the district court to 

explain its rationale, but when “the absence of excuse is so total ... that it would be an abuse of discretion for the judge to 

extend the time for appeal,” the proper course is to dismiss 

the appeal as untimely. Sherman v. Quinn, 668 F.3d 421, 425 

(7th Cir. 2012) (alteration in original) (quoting United States 

v. Guy, 140 F.3d 735, 736 (7th Cir. 1998)). That is the case here. 

Nestorovic offered no meaningful explanation for not filing a 

timely notice of appeal. Although not directly interpreting 

§ 2107(c), our caselaw considering parallel substantive standards makes clear that Nestorovic’s unsworn, unsupported 

statement that she was searching for an attorney—even if we 
No. 18-2562 9

credit it—does not demonstrate excusable neglect or good 

cause. See e.g., Satkar Hosp., 767 F.3d at 708 (explaining that 

Rule 4(a)(5) “requires excusable neglect, after all—not just 

plain neglect”); United States v. Cates, 716 F.3d 445, 449 

(7th Cir. 2013) (concluding that new counsel’s statement that 

he needed time to familiarize himself with case did not show 

excusable neglect under Rule 45). 

A party’s choice to wait, without more, is not a proper reason for extending the time to appeal. See Sherman, 668 F.3d at 

427. Nestorovic did not need an attorney to file a notice of appeal; indeed, the district court’s treatment of her motion as 

one demonstrates how little was required. See Robinson 

v. Sweeny, 794 F.3d 782, 784 (7th Cir. 2015) (refusing to overlook pro se litigant’s failure to file notice of appeal, which “requires very little”). Because the statute requires a showing 

that Nestorovic did not make, she was not entitled to an extension of time, and her appeal is untimely. We thus lack jurisdiction to review it. 

For these reasons, Nestorovic’s appeal is DISMISSED.