A recent NTSB opinion held that an airman’s failure to locate legal counsel to represent him is not good cause for the airman’s failure to timely appeal an emergency revocation order. In Administrator v. Harris, the airman filed his appeal three days late, five days after he received the Administrator’s revocation order. The Administrative Law Judge dismissed the airman’s appeal because it was late.
Although the airman argued that his tardiness resulted from his inability to locate legal counsel to represent him, the Board held that this did not justify the airman’s failure to advise the Board of his appeal before the deadline. The Board noted that the airman “simply chose to ignore a known deadline for a reason he would have learned, had he called the Board, would not have been sufficient to support an extension of time for the essentially pro forma task of filing a notice of appeal”.
This case is just another example of the strict deadline that must be met in order to appeal an emergency revocation order. You either need to locate counsel quickly or submit your notice of appeal on your own to meet the deadline and then locate an attorney to represent you in your appeal.
