Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/20-472_0pm1.pdf
Page Number: 25.0

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HOLLYFRONTIER CHEYENNE REFINING, LLC v.  
RENEWABLE FUELS ASSN. 
BARRETT, J., dissenting 

2 
  The Court’s counterexamples do not help its case.  Take 
its discussion of deadline “extensions”—as given, say, to a 
student who seeks more time to complete a paper even after 
the due date has passed or to a party who requests leave to 
file a document after the court’s original deadline.  See ante, 
at 6–8.  In this context, “extension” refers to “an additional 
period  of  time  given  one  to  meet  an  obligation.”    Random 
House  Webster’s  Unabridged  Dictionary,  at  684;  see  also 
American  Heritage  Dictionary,  at  628  (“[a]n  allowance  of 
extra  time,  as  for  the  repayment  of  a  debt”);  Black’s  Law 
Dictionary, at 622 (“[a] period of additional time to take an 
action,  make  a  decision,  accept  an  offer,  or  complete  a 
task”).  Because there is nothing odd about granting an ex-
tension even after the deadline has lapsed, the Court insists 
that there is nothing odd about granting HollyFrontier an 
exemption “extension” even after its initial exemption pe-
riod has expired. 
  Put aside for the moment that this case does not involve 
the  extension  of  a  deadline.    The  Court’s  reasoning  still 
breaks  down  because  when  a  deadline  “extension”  is 
granted, there is no “lapse”: The new deadline runs back to 
the old.  In other words, a post-due-date extension does not 
start a new period for timely action.  It forgives the missed 
deadline  by  retroactively  prolonging  the  pre-existing  pe-
riod.    Even  in  the  Court’s  deadline-extension  examples, 
then, there is continuity.4 

—————— 

4

 The  hypothetical  that  the  Court  offers  to  refute  this  critique—a 
teacher authorizing a student who missed a Friday deadline to turn in a 
paper between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m. on Monday—gets it nowhere.  It is either 
an extension of the deadline to 9 a.m. on Monday, in which case it oper-
ates  like  the  other  deadline  extensions  I  have  described,  with  the 
teacher simply specifying when she will be present to receive the paper.  
Or it is an example of something other than a deadline extension—like 
the start of an entirely new window for timely conduct—in which case it 
is inapposite.