Late Appeal Extension Request Denied by Social Security Tribunal

Citation: [NAME]  v  Canada Employment Insurance Commission , 2026  [NAME]  74 Social Security Tribunal of Canada Appeal Division Extension of Time Decision Applicant: [redacted] Respondent: [redacted] Decision under appeal: General Division decision dated November 6, 2025 (GE-25-2845) Tribunal member: [NAME] Decision date: February 2, 2026 File number: AD-26-35 On this page Decision Overview Issues Analysis Conclusion Decision [ 1 ] I am refusing an extension of time to apply to the Appeal Division. The application will not proceed. Overview [ 2 ] [NAME]. is the Applicant. I will call him the Claimant because this application is about his claim for Employment Insurance ( EI ) benefits. The Respondent is the Canada Employment Insurance Commission, which I will call the Commission. [ 3 ] The Claimant lost his job and applied for EI benefits. The Commission established a benefit period and paid him benefits. [ 4 ] The Commission later reconsidered its decision. It decided that the Claimant should not have received benefits because he had quit his job without just cause. It also decided that he had received earnings after he left his job and that he had made false statements about why he quit, whether he was working after he quit, and in how he reported earnings in his claim reports. The Commission assessed a penalty and imposed a notice of violation for the false statements. [ 5 ] When the Claimant asked the Commission to reconsider these decisions, it would not make any changes. The Claimant appealed to the General Division of the Social Security Tribunal (Tribunal). [ 6 ] The General Division largely agreed with the Commission, but it decided that the Claimant had knowingly made false statements only about why he quit and whether he was working after he quit. It found that the Claimant did not knowingly misreport his earnings. Because of this last finding, the General Division reduced the amount of the penalty. It otherwise dismissed the appeal. [ 7 ] Now the Claimant is asking for permission to appeal to the Appeal Division. [ 8 ] His application cannot proceed. The Claimant filed his application late. And he does not have a reasonable explanation for applying late. Issues [ 9 ] The issues in this appeal are: a) Was the application to the Appeal Division late? b) Should I extend the time for filing the application? Analysis The application was late When was the General Division decision communicated to the Claimant? [ 10 ] The General Division decision was issued on November 5, 2025, and was emailed to the Claimant on November 6, 2025. The Claimant expressly authorized the Tribunal to communicate with him by email. [ 11 ] According to section 22(3) of the Social Security Tribunal Rules (Rules), when the Tribunal has sent a document to a party by email, the document is considered received on the next business day (the “deemed delivery” rule). [ 12 ] If section 22(3) applies, the Tribunal may presume that the decision was communicated to the Claimant on November 7, 2025. However, section 22(4) allows that a party may show that this rule should not apply to them. [ 13 ] The Claimant indicated, in his application to the Appeal Division, that he only received the General Division decision on December 2, 2025, but the Tribunal records show that it was emailed to him on November 6, 2025. His application did not say why he thought he received the decision on December 2 and it provided little explanation for why his appeal was late. [ 14 ] I wrote the Claimant on January 19, 2026, to ask him to confirm when he received the decision and to explain why his application was late. He responded on January 27, 2026. [ 15 ] The Claimant explained that December 2 was the date that he became aware of the email from the Tribunal in his inbox. He said he was dealing with other issues at the time, and receiving a high volume of correspondence. He believes he overlooked the email, or that it was directed to a spam folder. [ 16 ] I doubt that the General Division decision was misdirected to his spam folder. If it had gone to the Claimant’s spam folder, then the Claimant would have had to open that spam folder to find it. The Claimant appears to know with certainty the date he found the document. I would expect he would be certain of where he found the email as well. [ 17 ] However, I accept that the Claimant has shown that the deemed delivery rule should not be applied in his circumstances. Even if the General Division decision did not land in the Claimant’s spam folder, it is plausible that the Claimant did not notice or open the Tribunal’s email when it first arrived in his inbox. I have no reason to doubt that he was dealing with a high volume of email, and that he overlooked it. [ 18 ] Therefore, I find that the decision was communicated to the Claimant on December 2, 2025. When did the Claimant appeal? [ 19 ] The Claimant sent his application to the Appeal Division to the Tribunal by email. The date on the email is January 12, 2025. The Tribunal date-stamped the application as received on January 12, 2025. [ 20 ] I find that the Claimant appealed on January 12, 2025. [ 21 ] Claimants are allowed 30 days to file their appeal, calculated from the date that the General Division decision is communicated to them. [ 22 ] I have accepted that the decision was communicated to the Claimant on December 2, 2025. This means that the deadline for him to appeal was January 2, 2026 (because January 1, 2026, was a statutory holiday). [ 23 ] The application was late. I am not extending the time for filing the application [ 24 ] When deciding whether to grant an extension of time, I have to consider whether the Claimant has a reasonable explanation for why the application is late. Footnote 1 [ 25 ] The Claimant says that he immediately took steps to understand the next level of appeal, believing that the 30-day window began from the date he actually received and read the decision. [ 26 ] I do not accept that the Claimant’s explanation is reasonable. [ 27 ] At the time the Claimant first opened the email and saw the decision, he could not have been certain that that he had more than a few days in which to apply to the Appeal Division. He discovered the decision (which was sent by the Tribunal with an accompanying letter) on December 2, 2025. The letter was dated November 6, 2025, and informed the Claimant that he had 30 days in which to file his application from the date he received the letter. [ 28 ] The Claimant said that he believed that he still had 30 days to apply when he saw the decision, but there is no evidence he tried to confirm this with the Tribunal. The emailed decision had been sitting in his inbox for nearly a month by the time he opened it. I think it would have been imprudent for the Claimant to simply presume that the Tribunal would allow him a further 30 days to apply from whenever he eventually opened the email. [ 29 ] As it turns out, I accepted the Claimant’s evidence that he received the decision until December 2, 2025. This means that the Claimant could have filed his application until January 2, 2026, and would still have been in time. Nonetheless, the Claimant asserted that he acted “immediately” on receiving the decision, which suggests that he believes he acted diligently. This is not supported by his apparently casual response to the email when he first discovered it. [ 30 ] Nor is it supported by the Claimant’s later actions. The Claimant did not file his application until January 12, 2026, so he was still 10 days late. The Claimant may have been convinced that he would be allowed 30 days to file his application from the date he discovered the Tribunal’s email, but this does not explain why he could not file his application within those 30 days. [ 31 ] The Claimant has not provided any reason for the delay between January 2, 2026, and January 12, 2026. So, he has not provided a reasonable explanation for the delay. Conclusion [ 32 ] I have not given the Claimant an extension of time to apply to the Appeal Division. This means that the application will not proceed. Footnotes Footnote 1 It says this in section 27(2) of the Social Security Tribunal Rules of Procedure. Return to footnote 1 referrer