Cite as: 507 U. S. 380 (1993)
O'Connor, J., dissenting
understood to be the act of a reasonably prudent person under the same circumstances."
Cf. 4A C. Wright & A. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 1165, pp. 480, 482 (2d ed. 1987) ("Excusable neglect [in Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 6(b)] seems to require a demonstration of good faith on the part of the party seeking an enlargement and some reasonable basis for noncompliance . . . . Absent a showing along these lines, relief will be denied"). Of course, we are not bound to accept Black's Law Dictionary as the authoritative expositor of American law. But if Congress had intended to depart from the accepted meaning of excusable neglect—supplementing its exclusive focus on the reason for the error with an emphasis on its effect—surely it would have so indicated.
In any event, it is quite unnatural to read the term "excusable neglect" to mean a variety of neglect that, in light of subsequent events and all the equities, turns out to be excusable. Not only does such an interpretation suffer from circularity—excusable neglect becomes the neglect that the court in its equitable discretion chooses to excuse—but it also renders critical language in the Rule superfluous. After all, the majority's interpretation would be no different if Rule 9006(b) afforded courts discretion to give relief in cases of "neglect" rather than "excusable neglect." The term "neglect" would describe the acceptable level of culpability, see ante, at 387-395, and the equities still would move the court's discretionary decision on whether it in fact would excuse the error once "neglect" was shown. The Court's interpretation thus reads the word "excusable" right out of the Rule. In my view, Congress included the word "excusable" to convey the notion that some types of neglect—at a minimum, the highly culpable and the willful—cannot be forgiven, regardless of the consequences.
The Court does recognize one guidepost. It states that the requirement of "excusable neglect" should be construed so as to "deter creditors or other parties from freely ignoring
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