By Tyler J. Balding,
When Washington shuts down, justice doesn’t simply pause, it stalls in uneven, confusing ways that can make or break an employment case. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) pares back to a skeleton crew. Federal-sector tribunals shutter their dockets. Courts generally keep running. However, while the federal government sleeps, many legal deadlines keep moving.
If you are pursuing a discrimination claim, a shutdown can threaten your procedural rights without warning. Below, we explain how agencies and courts handle these lapses, what past shutdowns have shown, and what steps you and your employment attorney should take right now to preserve your claims.
What Actually Closes and What Doesn’t
Under the EEOC’s published contingency plan, the agency suspends nearly all operations during a lapse in appropriations. Investigations, mediations, and hearings are put on hold, with only limited triage for charges nearing the end of their filing window. In plain English: new progress stops until funding returns, and communication may be nonexistent.
Federal employees get a slightly different experience through the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB). By formal notice, the MSPB automatically extends all filing and processing deadlines by the exact number of shutdown days. You don’t have to file a motion; the clock simply moves. That automatic extension, however, does not revive any deadline that expired before the shutdown began.
Meanwhile, the federal judiciary does not close immediately. Courts will remain open using non-appropriated funds and cases and deadlines continue as scheduled, at least for a limited period. After that, individual judges may begin curtailing operations or issuing orders extending deadlines case-by-case. In short, the federal agencies may pause, but the courts keep going until it is impractical.
Lessons from Prior Long Shutdowns
The 2018–2019 shutdown, lasting thirty-five days, remains the longest in U.S. history and a cautionary tale. During that lapse, the EEOC could not respond to more than 10,000 weekly inquiries, process 1,500 new charges, or conduct mediations and hearings. When it reopened, the backlog clogged the system for months.
The same pattern recurs in every lapse: the longer the shutdown, the steeper the restart. Even after operations resume, investigators face months of rescheduling, employers wait for reopened portals, and employees risk seeing their deadlines drift into technical jeopardy.
How Courts Are Likely to Handle Shutdown-Era Employment Cases
Courts are signaling that a government shutdown, by itself, will not excuse missed deadlines or procedural defaults. The lesson from cases like Navajo Nation v. Department of the Interior and the Fair Labor Relations Authority’s VA Medical Center decision is that judges distinguish between practical disruption and legal impossibility.
When an agency’s doors are locked and filing systems are offline, equitable tolling can apply, but only if the employee can prove diligent attempts to comply. Otherwise, the ordinary 300-day charge-filing and 90-day right-to-sue clocks continue to run. Federal tribunals such as the MSPB are more forgiving, automatically extending their deadlines by the length of the shutdown, but private-sector litigants should expect courts to apply a case-by-case approach.
In short, shutdowns may justify delay, but rarely forgiveness. Most judges will preserve procedural regularity and expect the parties to build a clear record of their efforts during the lapse.
Do My Filing Deadlines Stop?
Usually, no, deadlines do not go away. For private-sector workers, Title VII, ADA, and ADEA charge-filing deadlines, typically 300 days in deferral states, are not automatically paused by an EEOC shutdown. The agency itself warns that limited staff only review near-deadline filings. If your deadline is approaching, you must act as if the clock is still ticking.
Courts can apply equitable tolling when a shutdown makes filing impossible, but judges require proof of both diligence and extraordinary obstacle, not mere inconvenience. Likewise, once a Right-to-Sue letter is issued, the 90-day filing window in court continues to run. For federal employees, they must still contact an EEO counselor within 45 days; agency silence does not extend that requirement.
Short vs. Long Shutdown: What Changes for Your Case
If the lapse lasts only a few days or weeks, expect temporary cancellations and rescheduling, but little long-term damage. Courts continue operating, and most deadlines remain intact.
If the shutdown extends for weeks or months, however, the consequences compound. The EEOC accumulates thousands of unprocessed matters. Mediations and hearings pile up, employer deadlines shift, and investigations stretch across fiscal years. Courts begin to see an influx of direct federal filings from workers who refuse to wait for reopened agencies. The longer the shutdown, the more procedural gridlock—and the greater the risk that a timely claim will be lost to bureaucratic paralysis.
Best Practices: How Your Employment Attorney Can File and Protect Your Case During a Shutdown
When the government shuts down, employees represented by employment lawyers have a crucial advantage: your employment attorney can continue moving your case forward even while agencies are dark. Filing during a shutdown means creating a verifiable record of timely submission, not waiting for someone to pick up the phone.
At Carey & Associates, we have systems in place to file EEOC charges diligently on behalf of our clients regardless of the shutdown. In active federal court cases, our employment attorneys continue filing electronically through the courts system, which stays open even during funding lapses. Unless a judge issues an extension order, we proceed on schedule. We monitor every docket to ensure no client loses ground because of the politics in the capital.
With experienced employment counsel, filing during a shutdown becomes a matter of proof, not access. Your attorney’s documentation, portal records, postmarks, and emails, establishes diligence and preserves your rights even when the government itself is closed.
What This Means for You
If you believe you have experienced discrimination, do not wait for the government to reopen. When the federal government shuts down, the nation’s discrimination enforcement system grinds to a halt. The EEOC stops processing cases, courts keep the clock running, and critical filing deadlines don’t wait.
Learn how to protect your rights and contact Carey & Associates, P.C. today if your employment case may be affected by the government shutdown at info@capclaw.com or (203) 255-4150.
