Amina Anwar v. D. Johnson

ORDER

Appellants’ motion requesting publication of the memorandum disposition filed February 19, 2013, is GRANTED. The memorandum disposition is hereby withdrawn and replaced with the opinion filed concurrently with this order. No further petitions for rehearing or rehearing en banc will be entertained.

OPINION

The humorist Douglas Adams was fond of saying, “I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.” But the law more often follows Benjamin Franklin’s stern admonition: “You may delay, but time will not.” To paraphrase Émile Zola, deadlines are often the terrible anvil on which a legal result is forged.

This appeal presents the question of whether the Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure afford the Bankruptcy Court the discretion to extend retroactively the deadline for filing nondischargeability complaints when an attorney’s computer difficulties cause him to miss the electronic filing deadline. We conclude that the Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure do not allow retroactive extension of the deadline, and we affirm the judgment of the district court.

I

Amina Anwar and David C. McClanahan (collectively, “Anwar”) are former employees of the now-bankrupt…