A federal judge in Baltimore denied a bid by a group of Maryland hemp farmers, retailers, and an industry advocacy organization to extend their deadline to appeal the dismissal of their lawsuit challenging the state’s Cannabis Reform Act — rejecting arguments that a last-minute federal rescheduling announcement justified the delay.
The plaintiffs in Charm City Hemp, LLC, et al. v. Governor Wes Moore, et al. — a coalition that includes hemp farmers, hemp retailers, an advocacy group formed on behalf of hemp farmers, and a hemp consumer — sued the state last year over provisions of the CRA and its implementing regulations. Their complaint raised four constitutional claims: equal protection violations tied to licensing access, due process violations, a Dormant Commerce Clause challenge, and an uncompensated takings claim, all brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against Governor Moore, the Maryland Cannabis Administration, the Maryland Alcohol, Tobacco, and Cannabis Commission, and Baltimore Police Commissioner Richard Worley.
The core of the plaintiffs’ grievance: their hemp-derived products, which they say are lawful under the 2018 Farm Bill because they’re derived from hemp rather than cannabis, can’t meet the CRA’s new THC-per-milligram limits.
The case didn’t go their way. Worley was dismissed from the suit in July 2025. Then, on March 27, 2026, U.S. District Judge Julie R. Rubin dismissed the remaining claims against the state defendants entirely, finding the court lacked subject matter jurisdiction. Rubin’s opinion held that Eleventh Amendment sovereign immunity barred the claims against the state, that Governor Moore wasn’t a proper party to the case, and that the plaintiffs lacked Article III standing to challenge the CRA’s licensing rules, shelf-space requirements, and hemp flower enforcement actions. The judge also denied the plaintiffs leave to file an amended complaint, ruling that their proposed changes wouldn’t fix the jurisdictional problems.
Under federal appellate rules, plaintiffs had until April 27, 2026 — 30 days after the dismissal — to file a notice of appeal. They missed it by one day, filing a motion on April 28 asking the court to excuse the delay, then filing the actual notice of appeal the day after that.
Their explanation centered on timing: five days before the deadline, on April 22, the Acting Attorney General of the U.S. Department of Justice issued an order moving FDA-approved marijuana products, and marijuana products covered by qualifying state medical licenses, from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act. The order also kicked off an expedited administrative process, set to begin June 29, 2026, to consider rescheduling cannabis more broadly.
Plaintiffs’ counsel said he didn’t learn about the rescheduling move until the afternoon of April 28 — the day after the appeal deadline had already passed — because he’d spent the preceding weekend preparing for an unrelated hearing in Baltimore City District Court that took place on April 27, the deadline date itself. They argued the rescheduling news could revive their previously dismissed Dormant Commerce Clause and equal protection claims, and that letting an appellate court weigh in given the changed legal landscape would serve judicial economy better than starting a new lawsuit from scratch.
Judge Rubin wasn’t persuaded. Under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(a)(5), a court can extend the appeal window only on a showing of “good cause” or “excusable neglect” — two distinct standards that, per longstanding Fourth Circuit precedent, aren’t interchangeable. Good cause applies when something outside a party’s control caused the delay; excusable neglect applies when the delay involves some fault, but courts excuse it anyway based on equitable factors.
Rubin found neither standard met. On good cause, she noted the rescheduling order took effect five days before the appeal deadline — meaning nothing outside the plaintiffs’ control prevented a timely filing. Counsel’s scheduling conflict with an unrelated hearing, she wrote, citing prior case law, is the kind of workload-driven delay that “generally does not constitute good cause.”
On excusable neglect, Rubin similarly found the circumstances fell short of the “extraordinary” bar required, pointing to precedent holding that a lawyer’s unawareness of a relevant legal development isn’t itself extraordinary. She also noted the rescheduling news wouldn’t have changed the outcome anyway: the case was tossed on purely jurisdictional grounds, not on the merits of the constitutional claims, and — critically — the DOJ’s rescheduling order applies to marijuana, not to hemp products that fall under the federal Farm Bill definition the plaintiffs were relying on.
With no other grounds offered, Rubin denied the motion on May 14, 2026, closing off — for now — the plaintiffs’ path to a late appeal in this case.
