388
Opinion of the Court
party simply may choose to flout a deadline. In between lie cases where a party may choose to miss a deadline although for a very good reason, such as to render first aid to an accident victim discovered on the way to the courthouse, as well as cases where a party misses a deadline through inadvertence, miscalculation, or negligence. Petitioner contends that the Bankruptcy Court was correct when it first interpreted Rule 9006(b)(1) to require a showing that the movant's failure to comply with the court's deadline was caused by circumstances beyond its reasonable control. Petitioner suggests that exacting enforcement of filing deadlines is essential to the Bankruptcy Code's goals of certainty and finality in resolving disputed claims. Under petitioner's view, any showing of fault on the part of the late filer would defeat a claim of "excusable neglect."
We think that petitioner's interpretation is not consonant with either the language of the Rule or the evident purposes underlying it. First, the Rule grants a reprieve to out-of-time filings that were delayed by "neglect." The ordinary meaning of "neglect" is "to give little attention or respect" to a matter, or, closer to the point for our purposes, "to leave undone or unattended to esp[ecially] through carelessness." Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary 791 (1983) (emphasis added). The word therefore encompasses both simple, faultless omissions to act and, more commonly, omissions caused by carelessness. Courts properly assume, absent sufficient indication to the contrary, that Congress intends the words in its enactments to carry "their ordinary, contemporary, common meaning." Perrin v. United States, 444 U. S. 37, 42 (1979). Hence, by empowering the courts to accept late filings "where the failure to act was the result of excusable neglect," Rule 9006(b)(1), Congress plainly contemplated that the courts would be permitted, where appropriate, to accept late filings caused by inadvertence, mistake, or carelessness, as well as by intervening circumstances beyond the party's control.
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