Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/20-472_0pm1.pdf
Page Number: 10.0

Cite as:  594 U. S. ____ (2021) 

7 

Opinion of the Court 

Much federal law proceeds on this same understanding.
Under  certain  circumstances,  a  court  “may  . . .  extend”  a 
party’s  “time  for  appeal”  even  “after  the  expiration  of  the 
time  otherwise  set  for  bringing  appeal.” 
28  U. S. C. 
§2107(c).  In other words, the timer can start, run, finish, 
and then restart—because a court has the power to “extend”
the time allotted even after a lapse.  Likewise, the Federal 
Rules  of  Civil  Procedure  prescribe  all  sorts  of  rules  about 
“[w]hen an act may or must be done within a specified time” 
in trial court proceedings.  Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 6(b)(1).  And 
for almost all rules prescribing a deadline, a district court 
may  “extend  the  time”  even  “after  the  time  has  expired.” 
Ibid.; cf. Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 6(b)(2).  More than a few law-
yers  and  clients  have  taken  advantage  of  “extensions”  of 
just these sorts.

Still other examples exist.  Maybe most notably, just last 
year Congress twice passed laws providing for the “exten-
sion” of public benefits that had lapsed or been interrupted.
See Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021, Pub. L. 116–
260, §203, 134 Stat. 1182 (providing an “extension” of un-
employment compensation starting on December 26, 2020, 
after lapsing on July 31, 2020); Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and 
Economic Security Act, Pub. L. 116–136, §2114, 134 Stat.
281  (providing  an  “extension”  of  unemployment  benefits
starting in 2020, after lapsing in 2013).  The dissent gives 
these particular examples short shrift because they appear
in statutes “passed in an emergency context” a decade after 
the statute at issue here.  Post, at 7.  We do not doubt that 
meaning  may  change  with  time,  but  unless  the  dissent 
thinks the ordinary meaning of “extension” changed in just 
10  years,  it’s  hard  to  understand  why  these  enactments
don’t shed at least some light on today’s question.  If any-
thing,  the  emergency  context  in  which  these  laws  were
passed—forcing legislators to use a term on short notice— 
would seem to provide useful evidence of ordinary meaning. 
Beyond that, the dissent counters by attempting to recast