MISSED DEADLINES
in Employment Cases

What if you may have missed a deadline to file charges or complaints or lawsuits?

Some people might read this website and begin to wonder whether they have missed a deadline. As a general proposition, if you think you have a deadline problem ACT NOW!

• Call the government agency that might take your complaint (as I may have pointed you to in my Wrongful termination or Retaliation or Discrimination articles), and tell the agency that you are having a deadline problem - they might see you right away.
• Consider filing a “pro se” lawsuit (a lawsuit without having a lawyer yet).
• Start calling lawyers and mention when you call that you have a deadline problem. See my page about What an Employment Lawyer is and how to find one for assistance in finding a Missouri Plaintiff’s Employment Lawyer

The deadline trap destroys a lot of cases, especially for Government Employees. Government employees usually have very short deadlines.

You will probably benefit from legal advice, so consider calling a lawyer right away. Don’t assume that you have lost all your legal rights just because, by your own layman’s calculation, you might have missed a deadline.

Even if you really did miss a deadline, that does not always mean that you are out of rights. For example, in my Discrimination article, I list two deadlines to file charges of discrimination (for non-government employees): 180 days and 300 days. Some people think that their rights are gone if they wait more than 180 days to file a charge of discrimination, but that’s sometimes not true. The 180 day time limit applies to the MCHR portion of a charge, not to the EEOC portion. Many people (who work for larger employers) are reasonably well protected as long as they file the EEOC portion of their charge within 300 days (see Discrimination for the details). COMPLEX ISSUE: When did the 180 or 300 day clock start to tick? It’s often difficult to determine when the clock started to tick - you may have to file an action and gather evidence to even determine when your deadline clock started to tick, especially if you have multiple claims to make for different acts of discrimination.

You could call a lawyer right away and see if any legal doctrines might be invoked that would allow you more time.

Also, though, you might not have missed a deadline. Sometimes it’s very complicated to determine just when a deadline started to run or just when it expired. Depending on the circumstances, you might not really have missed a deadline after all.

You could file the charge or complaint or lawsuit anyway. There are good reasons to do this. Often, the only way to be certain as to whether you have really missed a deadline is to file an action and gather evidence, so maybe you really are not late after all.

Tim's Missouri Employment Law
is by Attorney Tim Willoughby

Tim is a St. Louis Missouri employment lawyer and a member of the National Employment Lawyers Association (NELA). Visit NELA.org and the Missouri Bar Website (see the directory of lawyers).