--- title: "United States v. Sanford" citation: "986 F.3d 779 (7th Cir. 2021)" authority_id: "AUTH-CA7-SANFORD-986-F3D-779" authority_type: "case" jurisdiction: "federal_seventh_circuit" precedential_status: "binding_in_ca7" url: "https://jason93.com/legal/federal-process/authorities/AUTH-CA7-SANFORD-986-F3D-779/" legal_review: "2026-08-25" links_checked: "2026-10-15" links_available: 1 links_checked_count: 1 license: "CC BY 4.0" --- # United States v. Sanford ## Holdings used - The filing prerequisite is an affirmative defense and mandatory claim-processing rule that must be enforced when properly invoked but can be forfeited. ## Material limitation Binding only in the Seventh Circuit and only for the bounded procedural postures in the linked claims. Published precedential full opinion reviewed from Justia's public full-text republication because the court archive exposes the historical PDF through an unstable generated URL. No merits or issue-exhaustion proposition is adopted. A comprehensive commercial citator was not run. ## Official source and pinpoints 986 F.3d 779 (7th Cir. 2021), 986 F.3d 781–82: ## Linked claims - `CLM-CIR7-004` ## Used in - [Seventh Circuit Overlay](https://jason93.com/legal/federal-process/modules/95-circuit-overlays/seventh-circuit.md)