(4) Time:

1. Timely Filing. Parties must file papers required or permitted to be filed with the Agency under these regulations, or any provision of applicable law, within the time provided by statute or Agency rule. Unless otherwise provided by applicable statute or regulation, Parties must file papers at an office of the Agency or with the Presiding Officer.
2. Manner of Filing. Any recipient of papers filed as provided in 801 CMR 1.01 (4)(a) shall stamp papers with the date received. The recipient shall provide on request date receipts to Persons filing papers by hand-delivery during business hours. All papers filed by U.S. mail shall be deemed filed on the date contained in the U.S. postal cancellation stamp or U.S. postmark, and not the date contained on a postal meter stamp. Papers filed by Electronic Medium shall be deemed filed at the office of the Agency or with the Presiding Officer on the date received by the Agency or Officer during usual business hours but not later than 5:00 P.M. Papers filed by all other means shall be considered hand-delivered, and shall be deemed filed on the date received by the Agency during its usual business hours. Papers received after usual business hours shall be deemed filed on the following business day.
3. Notice of Agency Actions. Notice of actions and other communications from the adjudicating Agency, or its designee, shall be presumed to be received upon the day of hand-delivery or, if mailed, three days after deposit in the U.S. mail. The postmark shall be evidence of the date of mailing.
4. Computation of Time. Unless otherwise specifically provided by these regulations or by other applicable law, computation of any time period referred to in these rules shall begin with the first day following the act which initiates the running of the time period. The last day of the time period is included unless it is a Saturday, Sunday, or legal holiday or any other day on which the office of the Agency is closed, when the period shall run until the end of the next following business day. When the time period is less than seven days, intervening days when the Agency is closed shall be excluded.
5. Extension of Time. The Agency or Presiding Officer may, for good cause shown, extend any time limit contained in these rules, unless otherwise restricted by law. All requests for extensions of time shall be made by motion before the expiration of the original or next previous extended time period. The filing of such motion shall toll the time period sought to be extended until the Presiding Officer acts on the motion. This subsection shall not apply to any limitation of time prescribed by statute, unless extensions are permitted by the applicable statute.

RETURN TO RULES MENU