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Filing deadline stat that shocked me in a Delaware case
I was reading through a Chancery Court opinion the other day and noticed the plaintiff missed a filing deadline by just 3 hours. The court cited the exact hour from the docket stamp, and I had no idea they could be that precise about it. We always assume business days matter, but the clock time really tipped the whole motion to dismiss in favor of the defendant. Has anyone else run into a case where minutes or hours made the difference, or is this just a Delaware quirk?
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campbell.logan16d ago
Delaware is brutal about that stuff. I had a case where we filed at 11:58 PM on the last day and the clerk's office email got stuck in a filter for two hours. The other side moved to dismiss and the judge straight up asked for the time stamp on our submission. We got lucky because the court uses a 24 hour rule for e-filing, but I've seen judges toss cases over a single minute on a docket. Always file a day early if you can, and if you're cutting it close, call the clerk's office and get a confirmation number right then. That three hour gap is a classic trap in Delaware because they read the rules literally.
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