“When a reviewing court determines that agency regulations are unlawful, the ordinary result is that the rules are vacated—not that their application to the individual petitioners is proscribed.” (citation omitted)
How later courts described this case
- “When a reviewing court determines that agency regulations are unlawful, the ordinary result is that the rules are vacated—not that their application to the individual petitioners is proscribed.” (citation omitted)
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
PRELIMINARY PRINT
Volume 603 U. S. Part 1
Pages 799–865
OFFICIAL REPORTS
OF
THE SUPREME COURT
July 1, 2024
Page Proof Pending Publication
REBECCA A. WOMELDORF
reporter of decisions
NOTICE: This preliminary print is subject to formal revision before
the bound volume is published. Users are requested to notify the Reporter
of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D.C. 20543,
pio@supremecourt.gov, of any typographical or other formal errors.
OCTOBER TERM, 2023 799
Syllabus
CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS OF
THE FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for
the eighth circuit
No. 22–1008. Argued February 20, 2024—Decided July 1, 2024
Since it opened for business in 2018, petitioner Corner Post, like most
merchants, has accepted debit cards as a form of payment. Debit card
transactions require merchants to pay an “interchange fee” to the bank
that issued the card. The fee amount is set by the payment networks
(such as Visa and MasterCard) that process the transaction. In 2010
Congress tasked the Federal Reserve Board with making sure that in-
terchange fees were “reasonable and proportional to the cost incurred
by the issuer with respect to the transaction.” 15 U. S. C. § 1693o–
2(a)(3)(A). Discharging this duty, in 2011 the Board published Regula-
tion II, which sets a maximum interchange fee of $0.21 per transaction
plus .05% of the transaction's value.
In 2021, Corner Post joined a suit brought against the Board under
Page Proof Pending Publication
the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). The complaint challenged
Regulation II on the ground that it allows higher interchange fees than
the statute permits. The District Court dismissed the suit as time
barred under 28 U. S. C. § 2401(a), the default 6-year statute of limita-
tions applicable to suits against the United States. The Eighth Cir-
cuit affrmed.
Held: An APA claim does not accrue for purposes of § 2401(a)'s 6-year
statute of limitations until the plaintiff is injured by fnal agency action.
Pp. 807–825.
(a) The APA grants Corner Post a cause of action subject to certain
conditions, see 5 U. S. C. § 702 and § 704, and 28 U. S. C. § 2401(a) delin-
eates the time period in which Corner Post may assert its claim. Sec-
tion 702 authorizes persons injured by agency action to obtain judicial
review by suing the United States or one of its agencies, offcers, or
employees. See Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner, 387 U. S. 136, 140–
141. The Court has explained that § 702 “requir[es] a litigant to show,
at the outset of the case, that he is injured in fact by agency action.”
Director, Offce of Workers' Compensation Programs v. Newport News
Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co., 514 U. S. 122, 127. A litigant therefore
cannot bring an APA claim unless and until she suffers an injury.
While § 702 equips injured parties with a cause of action, § 704 provides
that judicial review is available in most cases only for “fnal agency
800 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS
Syllabus
action.” Bennett v. Spear, 520 U. S. 154, 177–178. Reading § 702 and
§ 704 together, a plaintiff may bring an APA claim only after she is
injured by fnal agency action.
To determine whether Corner Post's APA claim is timely, the Court
must interpret § 2401(a), which provides that civil actions against the
United States “shall be barred unless the complaint is fled within six
years after the right of action frst accrues.” The Board says an APA
claim “accrues” under § 2401(a) when agency action is “fnal” for pur-
poses of § 704; the claim can accrue for purposes of the statute of limita-
tions even before the plaintiff suffers an injury. The Court disagrees.
A right of action “accrues” when the plaintiff has a “complete and pres-
ent cause of action,” which is when she has the right to “fle suit and
obtain relief.” Green v. Brennan, 578 U. S. 547, 554. Because an APA
plaintiff may not fle suit and obtain relief until she suffers an injury
from fnal agency action, the statute of limitations does not begin to run
until she is injured. Pp. 807–809.
(b) Congress enacted § 2401(a) in 1948, two years after it enacted the
APA. Section 2401(a)'s predecessor was the statute-of-limitations pro-
vision for the Little Tucker Act, which provided for district court juris-
diction over certain claims against the United States. When Congress
revised and recodifed the Judicial Code in 1948, it converted the Little
Page Proof Pending Publication
Tucker Act's statute of limitations into § 2401(a)'s general statute of limi-
tations for all suits against the Government. But Congress continued
to start the statute of limitations period when the right “accrues.”
Compare 36 Stat. 1093 (“after the right accrued for which the claim is
made”) with § 2401(a) (“after the right of action frst accrues”).
“Accrue” had a well-settled meaning in 1948, as it does now: A “right
accrues when it comes into existence,” United States v. Lindsay, 346
U. S. 568, 569—i. e., “when the plaintiff has a complete and present cause
of action,” Gabelli v. SEC, 568 U. S. 442, 448. This defnition has ap-
peared “in dictionaries from the 19th century up until today,” which
explain that a cause of action accrues when a suit may be maintained
thereon. Ibid. Thus, a cause of action does not become complete and
present—it does not accrue—“until the plaintiff can fle suit and obtain
relief.” Bay Area Laundry and Dry Cleaning Pension Trust Fund v.
Ferbar Corp. of Cal., 522 U. S. 192, 201. Contemporaneous legal dic-
tionaries explained that a claim does not “accrue” as soon as the defend-
ant acts, but only after the plaintiff suffers the injury required to press
her claim in court.
The Court's precedent treats this defnition of accrual as the “stand-
ard rule for limitations periods,” Green, 578 U. S., at 554, and the Court
has “repeatedly recognized that Congress legislates against” this stand-
ard rule, Graham County Soil & Water Conservation Dist. v. United
Cite as: 603 U. S. 799 (2024) 801
Syllabus
States ex rel. Wilson, 545 U. S. 409, 418. Conversely, the Court has
“reject[ed]” the possibility that a “limitations period commences at a
time when the [plaintiff] could not yet fle suit” as “inconsistent with
basic limitations principles.” Bay Area Laundry, 522 U. S., at 200.
The Court will not reach such a conclusion “in the absence of any such
indication in the text of the limitations period.” Green, 578 U. S., at
554. Departing from the traditional rule is particularly inappropriate
here because contemporaneous statutes demonstrate that Congress in
1948 knew how to create a limitations period that begins with the de-
fendant's action instead of the plaintiff's injury.
The Board would have this Court interpret § 2401(a) as a defendant-
protective statute of repose that begins to run when agency action be-
comes fnal. A statute of repose “puts an outer limit on the right to
bring a civil action” that is “measured . . . from the date of the last
culpable act or omission of the defendant.” CTS Corp. v. Waldburger,
573 U. S. 1, 8. But § 2401(a)'s plaintiff-focused language makes it a
“statute of limitations,” which—in contradistinction to statutes of re-
pose—are “based on the date when the claim accrued.” Id., at 7–8.
Pp. 809–813.
(c) The Board's arguments to the contrary lack merit. Pp. 813–825.
Page Proof Pending Publication
(1) The Board points to the many specifc statutory review provi-
sions that start the clock at fnality, contending that such statutes refect
a standard administrative-law practice of starting the limitations period
when “any proper plaintiff” can challenge the fnal agency action. But
unlike the specifc review provisions that the Board cites, § 2401(a) does
not refer to the date of the agency action's “entry” or “promulgat[ion]”;
it says “right of action frst accrues.” That textual difference matters.
The latter language refects a statute of limitations and the former a
statute of repose. Moreover, the specifc review provisions illustrate
that Congress has sometimes employed the Board's preferred fnal-
agency-action rule—but did not do so in § 2401(a). As the Court ob-
served in Rotkiske v. Klemm, it is “particularly inappropriate” to read
language into a statute of limitations “when, as here, Congress has
shown that it knows how to adopt the omitted language or provision.”
589 U. S. 8, 14. Moreover, most of the fnality-focused statutes that
the Board cites came after § 2401(a) was enacted in 1948. These other,
textually distinct statutes therefore do not establish a background pre-
sumption that the limitations period for facial challenges to agency rules
begins when the rule is fnal. Given the settled, plaintiff-centric mean-
ing of “right of action frst accrues” in 1948—not to mention in the Little
Tucker Act before it—the Board cannot “displace” this “standard rule”
for limitations periods. Green, 578 U. S., at 554.
802 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS
Syllabus
While the Board argues that § 2401(a) should not be interpreted to
adopt a “challenger-by-challenger” approach, the standard accrual rule
that § 2401(a) exemplifies is plainti ff speci fic. The Board reads
§ 2401(a) as if it says “the complaint is fled within six years after a right
of action [i. e., anyone's right of action] frst accrues”—which it does not
say. Rather, § 2401(a)'s text focuses on when the specifc plaintiff had
the right to sue: It says “the complaint is fled within six years after the
right of action frst accrues.” (Emphasis added.) And the Court has
explained that the traditional accrual rule looks to when the plaintiff—
this particular plaintiff—has a complete and present cause of action.
See Green, 578 U. S., at 554. No precedent supports the Board's hypo-
thetical “when could someone else have sued” sort of inquiry.
Importing the Board's special administrative-law rule into § 2401(a)
would create a defendant-focused rule for agency suits while retaining
the traditional challenger-specifc accrual rule for other suits against
the United States. That would give the same statutory text—“right
of action frst accrues”—different meanings in different contexts, even
though those words had a single, well-settled meaning when Congress
enacted § 2401(a). The Court “will not infer such an odd result in the
absence of any such indication in the text of the limitations period.”
Id., at 554. Pp. 813–819.
Page Proof Pending Publication
(2) The Board maintains that § 2401(a)'s tolling provision—which
provides that “[t]he action of any person under legal disability or beyond
the seas at the time the claim accrues may be commenced within three
years after the disability ceases”—“refects Congress's understanding
that a claim can `accrue[ ]' for purposes of Section 2401(a)” even when a
person is unable to sue. Brief for Respondent 24. While true, the toll-
ing exception applies when the plaintiff had a complete and present
cause of action after he was injured but his legal disability or absence
from the country prevented him from bringing a timely suit. The ex-
ception sheds no light on when the clock started for Corner Post. P. 819.
(3) The Court's precedents in Reading Co. v. Koons, 271 U. S. 58,
and Crown Coat Front Co. v. United States, 386 U. S. 503, do not support
the Board's unusual interpretation of “accrual.” In Koons, the Court
held that a statutory wrongful-death claim accrued upon the death of
the employee, not on the appointment of an estate administrator, even
though the latter was the “only person authorized by the statute to
maintain the action.” Koons, 271 U. S., at 60. The Board interprets
Koons to hold that a claim accrued at a time when no plaintiff could sue,
just as it says Corner Post's claim “accrued” before it could sue. But
in Koons, the benefciaries on whose behalf any administrator would
seek relief—the “real parties in interest”—had the right to “procure the
Cite as: 603 U. S. 799 (2024) 803
Syllabus
action” after the employee died. Given this unique context, Koons does
not contradict the proposition that a claim generally accrues when the
plaintiff has a complete and present cause of action. Next, the Board
relies on dicta in Crown Coat to support its contention that the word
“accrues” can take on different meanings in different contexts. But the
Board misreads Crown Coat, which did not suggest that the words
“right of action frst accrues” in a single statute should mean different
things in different contexts. Instead, the Court interpreted § 2401(a)—
the very statute at issue here—to embody the traditional rule that a
claim accrues when the plaintiff has the right to bring suit in court.
Pp. 819–823.
(4) Finally, the Board raises policy concerns. It emphasizes that
agencies and regulated parties need the fnality of a 6-year cutoff, and
that successful facial challenges fled after six years upset the reliance
interests of those that have long operated under existing rules. But
“pleas of administrative inconvenience . . . never `justify departing from
the statute's clear text.' ” Niz-Chavez v. Garland, 593 U. S. 155, 169
(quoting Pereira v. Sessions, 585 U. S. 198, 217). Congress could have
chosen different language in § 2401(a) or created a general statute of
repose for agencies, but it did not. In any event, the Board's policy
concerns are overstated because regulated parties may always challenge
Page Proof Pending Publication
a regulation as exceeding the agency's statutory authority in enforce-
ment proceedings against them. Moreover, there are signifcant inter-
ests supporting the plaintiff-centric accrual rule, including the APA's
“basic presumption” of judicial review, Abbott Labs., 387 U. S., at 140,
and our “deep-rooted historic tradition that everyone should have his
own day in court,” Richards v. Jefferson County, 517 U. S. 793, 798.
Pp. 823–825.
55 F. 4th 634, reversed and remanded.
Barrett, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts,
C. J., and Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh, JJ., joined. Kava-
naugh, J., fled a concurring opinion, post, p. 826. Jackson, J., fled a
dissenting opinion, in which Sotomayor and Kagan, JJ., joined, post, p.
843.
Bryan Weir argued the cause for petitioner. With him on
the briefs were Tyler R. Green and Frank H. Chang.
Benjamin W. Snyder argued the cause for respondent.
With him on the brief were Solicitor General Prelogar,
804 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS
Opinion of the Court
Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Boynton,
Deputy Solicitor General Stewart, and Daniel Tenny.*
Justice Barrett delivered the opinion of the Court.
The default statute of limitations for suits against the
United States requires “the complaint [to be] fled within
six years after the right of action frst accrues.” 28 U. S. C.
§ 2401(a). We must decide when a claim brought under the
Administrative Procedure Act “accrues” for purposes of this
provision. The answer is straightforward. A claim accrues
when the plaintiff has the right to assert it in court—and in
the case of the APA, that is when the plaintiff is injured by
fnal agency action.
*Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were fled for the State of West
Virginia et al. by Patrick Morrisey, Attorney General of West Virginia,
Lindsay S. See, Solicitor General, Michael R. Williams, Principal Deputy
Solicitor General, and Grant A. Newman, Assistant Solicitor General, and
by the Attorneys General for their respective States as follows: Steve Mar-
Page Proof Pending Publication
shall of Alabama, Tim Griffn of Arkansas, Ashley Moody of Florida,
Chris Carr of Georgia, Raúl Labrador of Idaho, Theodore E. Rokita of
Indiana, Brenna Bird of Iowa, Daniel Cameron of Kentucky, Jeff Landry
of Louisiana, Andrew Bailey of Missouri, Austin Knudsen of Montana,
Michael T. Hilgers of Nebraska, Dave Yost of Ohio, Alan Wilson of South
Carolina, Jonathan Skrmetti of Tennessee, Ken Paxton of Texas, and
Sean D. Reyes of Utah; for Governor Henry McMaster et al. by Thomas
A. Limehouse, Jr., and William Grayson Lambert; for the Americans for
Prosperity Foundation by Michael Pepson; for the Cato Institute by Jer-
emy J. Broggi, Anastasia P. Boden, and Thomas A. Berry; for the Cham-
ber of Commerce of the United States of America by Mark A. Perry,
Joshua M. Wesneski, and Jennifer B. Dickey; for Little Tucker Act Schol-
ars by Michael Buschbacher; for the National Federation of Independent
Business Small Business Legal Center, Inc., et al. by Elizabeth Gaudio
Milito, Ilya Shapiro, Angelo I. Amador, and David C. Tryon; for the New
Civil Liberties Alliance by Richard A. Samp, Kara M. Rollins, and Mark
S. Chenoweth; and for Aditya Bamzai et al. by Aditya Bamzai, pro se.
Briefs of amici curiae urging affrmance were fled for Public Citizen
by Nicolas A. Sansone, Allison M. Zieve, and Scott L. Nelson; and for
Small Business Associations by Skye L. Perryman.
Caleb Kruckenberg and Molly E. Nixon fled a brief of amicus curiae
for the Pacifc Legal Foundation.
Cite as: 603 U. S. 799 (2024) 805
Opinion of the Court
I
Corner Post is a truckstop and convenience store located
in Watford City, North Dakota. It was incorporated in 2017,
and in 2018, it opened for business. Like most merchants,
Corner Post accepts debit cards as a form of payment.
While convenient for customers, debit cards are costly for
merchants: Every transaction requires them to pay an “in-
terchange fee” to the bank that issued the card. The
amount of the fee is set by the payment networks, like Visa
and Mastercard, that process the transaction between the
banks of merchants and cardholders. The cost quickly adds
up. Since it opened, Corner Post has paid hundreds of thou-
sands of dollars in interchange fees—which has meant higher
prices for its customers.
Interchange fees have long been a sore point for mer-
chants. For many years, payment networks had free rein
over the fee amount—and because they used the promise of
Page Proof Pending Publication
per-transaction proft to compete for the banks' business,
they had significant incentive to raise the fees. Mer-
chants—who would lose customers if they declined debit
cards—had little choice but to pay whatever the networks
charged. Left unregulated, interchange fees ballooned.
Congress eventually stepped in. The Durbin Amendment
to the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Pro-
tection Act of 2010 tasks the Federal Reserve Board with
setting “standards for assessing whether the amount of any
interchange transaction fee . . . is reasonable and propor-
tional to the cost incurred by the issuer with respect to the
transaction.” 124 Stat. 2068, 15 U. S. C. § 1693o–2(a)(3)(A).
Discharging this duty, the Board promulgated Regulation II,
which sets a maximum interchange fee of $0.21 per transac-
tion plus .05% of the transaction's value. See Debit Card
Interchange Fees and Routing, 76 Fed. Reg. 43394, 43420
(2011). The Board published the rule on July 20, 2011.
Four months later, a group of retail-industry trade associa-
tions and individual retailers sued the Board, arguing that
806 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS
Opinion of the Court
Regulation II allows costs that the statute does not. See
NACS v. Board of Governors of FRS, 958 F. Supp. 2d 85,
95–96 (DC 2013). The District Court agreed, id., at 99–109,
but the D. C. Circuit reversed, concluding “that the Board's
rules generally rest on reasonable constructions of the stat-
ute,” NACS v. Board of Governors of FRS, 746 F. 3d 474,
477 (2014).
Corner Post, of course, did not exist when the Board
adopted Regulation II or even during the D. C. Circuit litiga-
tion. But after opening its doors, it too became frustrated
by interchange fees, and in 2021, joined a suit brought
against the Board under the Administrative Procedure Act
(APA). The complaint alleges that Regulation II is unlaw-
ful because it allows payment networks to charge higher fees
than the statute permits. See 5 U. S. C. §§ 706(2)(A), (C).
The District Court dismissed the suit as barred by 28
U. S. C. § 2401(a), the applicable statute of limitations, 2022
Page Proof Pending Publication
WL 909317, *7–*9 (ND, Mar. 11, 2022), and the Eighth Circuit
affrmed, North Dakota Retail Assn. v. Board of Governors
of FRS, 55 F. 4th 634 (2022). Following other Circuits, it
distinguished between “facial” challenges to a rule (like Cor-
ner Post's challenge to Regulation II) and challenges to a
rule “as-applied” to a particular party. Id., at 640–641.
The Eighth Circuit held that “when plaintiffs bring a facial
challenge to a fnal agency action, the right of action accrues,
and the limitations period begins to run, upon publication of
the regulation.” Id., at 641. On this view, § 2401(a)'s 6-year
limitations period began in 2011, when the Board published
Regulation II, and expired in 2017, before Corner Post
swiped its frst debit card. See id., at 643. Corner Post's
suit was therefore too late.
The Eighth Circuit's decision deepened a circuit split over
when § 2401(a)'s statute of limitations begins to run for APA
suits challenging agency action. At least six Circuits now
hold that the limitations period for “facial” APA challenges
begins on the date of fnal agency action—e. g., when the rule
Cite as: 603 U. S. 799 (2024) 807
Opinion of the Court
was promulgated—regardless of when the plaintiff was in-
jured. See, e. g., id., at 641; Wind River Min. Corp. v. United
States, 946 F. 2d 710, 715 (CA9 1991); Dunn-McCampbell
Royalty Interest, Inc. v. National Park Serv., 112 F. 3d 1283,
1287 (CA5 1997); Harris v. FAA, 353 F. 3d 1006, 1009–1010
(CADC 2004); Hire Order Ltd. v. Marianos, 698 F. 3d 168,
170 (CA4 2012); Odyssey Logistics & Tech. Corp. v. Iancu,
959 F. 3d 1104, 1111–1112 (CA Fed. 2020). By contrast, the
Sixth Circuit has stated a generally applicable rule that
§ 2401(a)'s limitations period begins when the plaintiff is
injured by agency action, even if that injury did not occur
until many years after the action became fnal. Herr v.
United States Forest Serv., 803 F. 3d 809, 820–822 (2015)
(“When a party frst becomes aggrieved by a regulation that
exceeds an agency's statutory authority more than six years
after the regulation was promulgated, that party may chal-
lenge the regulation without waiting for enforcement pro-
ceedings” (emphasis deleted)). We granted certiorari to re-
Page Proof Pending Publication
solve the split. 600 U. S. ––– (2023).
II
Three statutory provisions control our analysis: 5 U. S. C.
§ 702 and § 704, the relevant APA provisions, and 28 U. S. C.
§ 2401(a), the relevant statute of limitations. The APA pro-
visions grant Corner Post a cause of action subject to certain
conditions, and § 2401(a) sets the window within which Cor-
ner Post can assert its claim.
Section 702 authorizes persons injured by agency action to
obtain judicial review by suing the United States or one of its
agencies, offcers, or employees. See Abbott Laboratories
v. Gardner, 387 U. S. 136, 140–141 (1967). It provides that
“[a] person suffering legal wrong because of agency action,
or adversely affected or aggrieved by agency action within
the meaning of a relevant statute, is entitled to judicial re-
view thereof.” 5 U. S. C. § 702. We have explained that
§ 702 “requir[es] a litigant to show, at the outset of the case,
808 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS
Opinion of the Court
that he is injured in fact by agency action.” Director, Offce
of Workers' Compensation Programs v. Newport News Ship-
building & Dry Dock Co., 514 U. S. 122, 127 (1995). Thus, a
litigant cannot bring an APA claim unless and until she suf-
fers an injury.1
While § 702 equips injured parties with a cause of action,
§ 704 limits the agency actions that are subject to judicial
review. Unless another statute makes the agency's action
reviewable (and none does for Regulation II), judicial review
is available only for “fnal agency action.” § 704. In most
cases, then, a plaintiff can only challenge an action that
“mark[s] the consummation of the agency's decisionmaking
process” and is “one by which rights or obligations have been
determined, or from which legal consequences will fow.”
Bennett v. Spear, 520 U. S. 154, 177–178 (1997) (internal quo-
tation marks omitted). Note that § 702's injury requirement
and § 704's fnality requirement work hand in hand: Each is
Page Proof Pending Publication
a “necessary, but not by itself . . . suffcient, ground for stat-
ing a claim under the APA.” Herr, 803 F. 3d, at 819.
The applicable statute of limitations, 28 U. S. C. § 2401(a),
contains the language we must interpret: “[E]very civil ac-
tion commenced against the United States shall be barred
unless the complaint is fled within six years after the right
of action frst accrues.” (Emphasis added.) This provision
applies generally to suits against the United States unless
the timing provision of a more specifc statute displaces it.
See, e. g., 33 U. S. C. § 1369(b) (deadline to challenge certain
agency actions under the Clean Water Act).
1
The dissent asserts that § 702 “restricts who may challenge agency ac-
tion,” yet its injury requirement “says nothing about” the cause of action
or elements of the claim. Post, at 857. But surely the dissent does not
mean to suggest that an uninjured person may bring an APA claim.
Whether one calls injury a restriction on who may sue or an element of
the cause of action, the relevant, undisputed point is that a plaintiff cannot
sue under the APA unless she is “injured in fact by agency action.” New-
port News, 514 U. S., at 127.
Cite as: 603 U. S. 799 (2024) 809
Opinion of the Court
The Board contends that an APA claim “accrues” when
agency action is “fnal” for purposes of § 704—injury, it says,
is necessary for the suit but irrelevant to the statute of limi-
tations.2 We disagree. A right of action “accrues” when
the plaintiff has a “complete and present cause of action”—
i. e., when she has the right to “fle suit and obtain relief.”
Green v. Brennan, 578 U. S. 547, 554 (2016) (internal quota-
tion marks omitted). An APA plaintiff does not have a com-
plete and present cause of action until she suffers an injury
from fnal agency action, so the statute of limitations does
not begin to run until she is injured.
III
Congress enacted § 2401(a) in 1948, two years after it
enacted the APA. See 62 Stat. 971. Section 2401(a)'s pred-
ecessor was the statute-of-limitations provision for the Little
Tucker Act, which gave district courts jurisdiction over non-
Page Proof Pending Publication
tort monetary claims not exceeding $10,000 against the
United States. See § 24, 36 Stat. 1093 (“That no suit against
the Government of the United States shall be allowed under
this paragraph unless the same shall have been brought
within six years after the right accrued for which the claim
is made”); Brief for Professor Aditya Bamzai et al. as Amici
2
The Board leaves open the possibility that someone could bring an as-
applied challenge to a rule when the agency relies on that rule in enforce-
ment proceedings against that person, even if more than six years have
passed since the rule's promulgation. But Corner Post, as a merchant
rather than a payment network, is not regulated by Regulation II—so it
will never be the target of an enforcement action in which it could chal-
lenge that rule. Justice Kavanaugh asserts that “Corner Post can ob-
tain relief in this case only because the APA authorizes vacatur of agency
rules.” Post, at 826 (concurring opinion). Whether the APA authorizes
vacatur has been subject to thoughtful debate by Members of this Court.
See, e. g., United States v. Texas, 599 U. S. 670, 693–702 (2023) (Gorsuch,
J., concurring in judgment). We took this case only to decide how
§ 2401(a)'s statute of limitations applies to APA claims. We therefore as-
sume without deciding that vacatur is available under the APA.
810 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS
Opinion of the Court
Curiae 5–6. When Congress revised and recodifed the Ju-
dicial Code in 1948, it converted the Little Tucker Act's stat-
ute of limitations into a general statute of limitations for all
suits against the Government—replacing “under this para-
graph” with “every civil action commenced against the United
States.” But Congress continued to start the 6-year limita-
tions period when the right “accrues.” Compare 36 Stat.
1093 (“after the right accrued for which the claim is made”)
with § 2401(a) (“after the right of action frst accrues”).
In 1948, as now, “accrue” had a well-settled meaning: A
“right accrues when it comes into existence,” United States
v. Lindsay, 346 U. S. 568, 569 (1954)—i. e., “ `when the plain-
tiff has a complete and present cause of action,' ” Gabelli v.
SEC, 568 U. S. 442, 448 (2013) (quoting Wallace v. Kato, 549
U. S. 384, 388 (2007)). This defnition has appeared “in dic-
tionaries from the 19th century up until today.” Gabelli, 568
U. S., at 448. Legal dictionaries in the 1940s and 1950s uni-
formly explained that a cause of action “ `accrues' when a suit
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may be maintained thereon.” Black's Law Dictionary 37
(4th ed. 1951) (Black's); see also, e. g., Ballentine's Law Dic-
tionary 15 (2d ed. 1948) (Ballentine's) (“[A]ccrual of cause of
action” defned as the “coming or springing into existence of
a right to sue” (boldface deleted)). Thus, we have explained
that a cause of action “does not become `complete and pres-
ent' for limitations purposes”—it does not accrue—“until the
plaintiff can fle suit and obtain relief.” Bay Area Laundry
and Dry Cleaning Pension Trust Fund v. Ferbar Corp. of
Cal., 522 U. S. 192, 201 (1997).
Importantly, contemporaneous dictionaries also explained
that a cause of action accrues “on [the] date that damage is
sustained and not [the] date when causes are set in motion
which ultimately produce injury.” Black's 37. “[I]f an act
is not legally injurious until certain consequences occur, it is
not the mere doing of the act that gives rise to a cause of
action, but the subsequent occurrence of damage or loss as
the consequence of the act, and in such case no cause of
action accrues until the loss or damage occurs.” Ballen-
Cite as: 603 U. S. 799 (2024) 811
Opinion of the Court
tine's 16 (emphasis added). Thus, when Congress used the
phrase “right of action frst accrues” in § 2401(a), it was well
understood that a claim does not “accrue” as soon as the de-
fendant acts, but only after the plaintiff suffers the injury
required to press her claim in court.
Our precedent treats this defnition of accrual as the
“standard rule for limitations periods.” Green, 578 U. S., at
554. “We have repeatedly recognized that Congress legis-
lates against the `standard rule that the limitations period
commences when the plaintiff has a complete and present
cause of action.' ” Graham County Soil & Water Conserva-
tion Dist. v. United States ex rel. Wilson, 545 U. S. 409, 418
(2005) (quoting Bay Area Laundry, 522 U. S., at 201). It
is “unquestionably the traditional rule” that “[a]bsent other
indication, a statute of limitations begins to run at the time
the plaintiff `has the right to apply to the court for relief.' ”
TRW Inc. v. Andrews, 534 U. S. 19, 37 (2001) (Scalia, J., con-
curring in judgment) (quoting 1 H. Wood, Limitation of Ac-
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tions § 122a, p. 684 (rev. 4th ed. 1916) (Wood)). Conversely,
we have “reject[ed]” the possibility that a “limitations pe-
riod commences at a time when the [plaintiff] could not yet
fle suit” as “inconsistent with basic limitations principles.”
Bay Area Laundry, 522 U. S., at 200.
This traditional rule constitutes a strong background pre-
sumption. While the “standard rule can be displaced such
that the limitations period begins to run before a plaintiff
can fle a suit,” we “ `will not infer such an odd result in the
absence of any such indication' in the text of the limitations
period.” Green, 578 U. S., at 554 (quoting Reiter v. Cooper,
507 U. S. 258, 267 (1993)). “Unless Congress has told us oth-
erwise in the legislation at issue, a cause of action does not
become `complete and present' for limitations purposes until
the plaintiff can fle suit and obtain relief.” Bay Area Laun-
dry, 522 U. S., at 201.
There is good reason to conclude that Congress codifed
the traditional accrual rule in § 2401(a). Nothing “in the
text of [§ 2401(a)'s] limitations period” gives any indication
812 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS
Opinion of the Court
that it begins to run before the plaintiff has a complete and
present cause of action. Green, 578 U. S., at 554. Rather,
§ 2401(a) uses standard language that had a well-settled
meaning in 1948: “right of action frst accrues.” Moreover,
Congress knew how to depart from the traditional rule to
create a limitations period that begins with the defendant's
action instead of the plaintiff's injury: Just six years before
it enacted § 2401(a), Congress passed the Emergency Price
Control Act of 1942, which required challenges to Offce of
Price Administration actions to be fled “[w]ithin a period of
sixty days after the issuance of any regulation or order.”
§ 203(a), 56 Stat. 31 (emphasis added); see also Administra-
tive Orders Review Act (Hobbs Act), § 4, 64 Stat. 1130 (1950)
(allowing petitions for review “within sixty days after entry
of ” a “final order reviewable under this Act”). Section
2401(a), by contrast, stuck with the standard accrual
language.
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Section 2401(a) thus operates as a statute of limitations
rather than a statute of repose. “[A] statute of limitations
creates `a time limit for suing in a civil case, based on the
date when the claim accrued.' ” CTS Corp. v. Waldburger,
573 U. S. 1, 7 (2014) (quoting Black's 1546 (9th ed. 2009)).
That describes § 2401(a), with its reference to when the right
of action “accrues,” to a tee. “A statute of repose, on the
other hand, puts an outer limit on the right to bring a civil
action” that is “measured not from the date on which the
claim accrues but instead from the date of the last culpable
act or omission of the defendant.” 573 U. S., at 8. Such
statutes bar “ `any suit that is brought after a specifed time
since the defendant acted . . . even if this period ends before
the plaintiff has suffered a resulting injury.' ” Ibid. (quoting
Black's 1546). That describes statutes like the Hobbs Act,
which sets a fling deadline of 60 days from the “entry” of
the agency order. 64 Stat. 1130. Statutes of limitations
“require plaintiffs to pursue diligent prosecution of known
claims”; statutes of repose refect a “legislative judgment
Cite as: 603 U. S. 799 (2024) 813
Opinion of the Court
that a defendant should be free from liability after the legis-
latively determined period of time.” CTS Corp., 573 U. S.,
at 8–9 (internal quotation marks omitted).3 The Board asks
us to interpret § 2401(a) as a defendant-protective statute of
repose that begins to run when agency action becomes fnal.
But § 2401(a)'s plaintiff-focused language makes it an accrual-
based statute of limitations.
* * *
Section 2401(a) embodies the plaintiff-centric traditional
rule that a statute of limitations begins to run only when the
plaintiff has a complete and present cause of action. Be-
cause injury, not just fnality, is required to sue under the
APA, Corner Post's cause of action was not complete and
present until it was injured by Regulation II. Therefore,
its suit is not barred by the statute of limitations.
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IV Publication
The Board concedes that some claims accrue for purposes
of § 2401(a) when the plaintiff has a complete and present
cause of action—in other words, it admits that “accrue” car-
ries its usual meaning for some claims. But it argues that
facial challenges to agency rules are different, accruing when
agency action is fnal rather than when the plaintiff can as-
sert her claim. See also post, at 847–848 (Jackson, J., dis-
senting). The Board raises several arguments to support its
position, but none work.
A
The Board puts the most weight on the many specifc stat-
utory review provisions that start the clock at fnality. See
3
Perplexingly, the dissent rejects this distinction, post, at 852, even
though our precedent clearly recognizes it: CTS Corp. acknowledged the
“substantial overlap between the policies of the two types of statute” but
concluded nonetheless that “each has a distinct purpose and each is tar-
geted at a different actor.” 573 U. S., at 8.
814 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS
Opinion of the Court
also post, at 853–857 (Jackson, J., dissenting). The Hobbs
Act, for example, requires persons aggrieved by certain fnal
orders and regulations of the Federal Communications Com-
mission, Secretary of Agriculture, and Secretary of Trans-
portation, among others, to petition for review “within 60
days after [the] entry” of the fnal agency action. 28 U. S. C.
§§ 2342, 2344; see also, e. g., 29 U. S. C. § 655(f) (suits chal-
lenging Occupational Safety and Health Administration
standards must be fled “prior to the sixtieth day after such
standard is promulgated”). The Board contends that such
statutes refect a standard administrative-law practice of
starting the limitations period when “any proper plaintiff”
can challenge the fnal agency action. Brief for Respondent
9. There is “no sound basis,” it insists, “for instead applying
a challenger-by-challenger approach to calculate the limita-
tions period on APA claims.” Ibid.; see also post, at 850–
852 (Jackson, J., dissenting).
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1 Publication
This argument hits the immutable obstacle of § 2401(a)'s
text. Unlike the specifc review provisions that the Board
cites, § 2401(a) does not refer to the date of the agency ac-
tion's “entry” or “promulgat[ion]”; it says “right of action
frst accrues.” That textual difference matters. To begin,
the latter language refects a statute of limitations and the
former a statute of repose. Moreover, the specifc review
provisions actually undercut the Board's argument, because
they illustrate that Congress has sometimes employed the
Board's preferred fnal-agency-action rule—but did not do so
in § 2401(a). As we observed in Rotkiske v. Klemm, it is
“particularly inappropriate” to read language into a statute
of limitations “when, as here, Congress has shown that it
knows how to adopt the omitted language or provision.”
589 U. S. 8, 14 (2019).
In arguing to the contrary, post, at 853–857, the dissent ig-
nores the textual differences between § 2401(a) and fnality-
focused specifc review provisions—fouting Rotkiske's admo-
Cite as: 603 U. S. 799 (2024) 815
Opinion of the Court
nition to heed such distinctions. According to the dissent,
we cannot expect “Congress to have explicitly stated that
accrual in § 2401(a) starts at the point of fnal agency action
when § 2401(a) is a residual provision” that applies generally.
Post, at 856. But § 2401(a)'s text refects a choice: Congress
took the Little Tucker Act's plaintiff-focused limitations
period—which began when “the right accrued for which the
claim is made,” 36 Stat. 1093—and made it generally applica-
ble to “every” suit against the United States, § 2401(a); see
Part III, supra. Congress could have created a separate
residual provision for suits challenging agency action and
pegged its limitations period to the moment of fnality, using
statutes like the Emergency Price Control Act as a model.
It chose a different path.
Undeterred, the dissent insists that by the time § 2401(a)
was enacted, Congress had “uniformly expressed [a] judg-
ment” that the limitations period for agency suits should
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be defendant-centric and start with fnality. Post, at 856.
Again, this argument disregards § 2401(a)'s text in favor of
alleged congressional intent divined from other statutes with
very different language. “As this Court has repeatedly
stated, the text of a law controls over purported legislative
intentions unmoored from any statutory text”; the Court
“may not `replace the actual text with speculation as to Con-
gress' intent.' ” Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta, 597 U. S. 629,
642 (2022) (quoting Magwood v. Patterson, 561 U. S. 320,
334 (2010)).
In any event, the dissent misunderstands the history. See
post, at 855, and n. 6. (Notably, the Board itself does not
make this argument.) While the Emergency Price Control
Act of 1942 preceded the APA (1946) and § 2401(a) (1948),
most fnality-focused limitations provisions, like the Hobbs
Act (1950), came later. See post, at 853–854, and n. 5; e. g.,
5 U. S. C. § 7703(b)(1) (added by 92 Stat. 1143 (1978)). To
conjure its supposed backdrop, the dissent cites a hodgepodge
of other pre-1948 statutes that started the clock at fnality.
816 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS
Opinion of the Court
Post, at 855, n. 6. But these statutes generally governed
challenges to orders adjudicating a party's own rights—what
we today might call “as-applied” challenges. For example,
7 U. S. C. § 194(a) provided a 30-day limitations period for a
meatpacker to appeal an order fnding that the packer “has
violated or is violating any provision” of the statute regulat-
ing business practices in the meatpacking industry. 42 Stat.
161–162; see also, e. g., 15 U. S. C. § 45(c) (persons required by
a Federal Trade Commission order to cease a business prac-
tice may obtain review of that order within 60 days). Stat-
utes like these do not contradict the plaintiff-centric stand-
ard accrual rule, because a party subject to such an order
suffers legally cognizable injury at the same time that the
order becomes fnal.4
Thus, even if the “intention” Congress “expressed” in tex-
tually distinct statutes could overcome § 2401(a)'s language,
post, at 856, the dissent's history would not support its sup-
posed background presumption—that the limitations period
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for facial challenges to regulations begins when the rule be-
comes fnal even if the plaintiff does not yet have a complete
and present cause of action. Instead, the best course, as
always, is to stick with the ordinary meaning of the text
that actually applies, § 2401(a). Given the settled, plaintiff-
centric meaning of “right of action frst accrues” in 1948—
4
There is another reason to doubt the dissent's supposed background
limitations principle for facial challenges to agency rules: In the 1940s,
“most administrative activity was adjudicative in nature”; agencies
“rarely, if ever, adopted sweeping regulations.” K. Hickman & R. Pierce,
1 Administrative Law § 1.3, p. 26 (7th ed. 2024). The dissent errs by ex-
trapolating a general congressional intent that all agency suits be subject
to a fnality-based limitations rule based on pre-1948 statutes that gov-
erned a subset of agency actions—adjudicative orders—and were enacted
before facial challenges to regulations became common. It is hard to see
how provisions governing when a party may challenge an order adjudicat-
ing her own rights could set any kind of background rule for facial APA
challenges to generally applicable regulations.
Cite as: 603 U. S. 799 (2024) 817
Opinion of the Court
not to mention in the Little Tucker Act—the dissent cannot
“displace” this “standard rule” with scattered citations to
different, inapposite statutes. Green, 578 U. S., at 554.
2
The standard accrual rule that § 2401(a)'s limitations pe-
riod exemplifes is plaintiff specifc—even if repose provi-
sions like the Hobbs Act eschew a “challenger-by-challenger”
approach. Brief for Respondent 9. The Board's rule would
start the limitations period applicable to the plaintiff not
when she had a complete and present cause of action but
when the agency action was fnal and, theoretically, some
other plaintiff was injured and could have sued. But
§ 2401(a)'s text focuses on a specifc plaintiff: “the complaint
is fled within six years after the right of action frst ac-
crues.” (Emphasis added.)
The dissent disputes § 2401(a)'s plaintiff specifcity by
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pointing out that it does not say “the plaintiff's right of ac-
tion frst accrues.” Post, at 850–851. True, but it does use
the defnite article “the” to link “the complaint” with “the
right of action.” So the most natural interpretation is that
its limitations period begins when the cause of action associ-
ated with the complaint—the plaintiff's cause of action—is
complete. And while the dissent cites dictionary defnitions
of “accrue” that mention “ `a right to sue,' ” ibid., the stat-
ute's use of the defnite article “the” takes precedence. The
Board and the dissent read § 2401(a) as if it says “the com-
plaint is fled within six years after a right of action [i. e.,
anyone's right of action] frst accrues”—which, of course, it
does not.
In fact, we have explained that the traditional accrual rule
looks to when “the plaintiff”—this particular plaintiff—“has
a complete and present cause of action.” Green, 578 U. S.,
at 554 (internal quotation marks omitted; emphasis added).
No precedent suggests that the traditional rule contemplates
818 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS
Opinion of the Court
the Board's hypothetical “when could someone else have
sued” sort of inquiry.5 Rather, the “statute of limitations
begins to run at the time the plaintiff has the right to apply
to the court for relief.” TRW Inc., 534 U. S., at 37 (opinion
of Scalia, J.) (internal quotation marks omitted; emphasis
added).6
Importing the Board's special administrative-law rule into
§ 2401(a) would create a defendant-focused rule for agency
suits while retaining the traditional challenger-specifc ac-
crual rule for other suits against the United States. That
would give the same statutory text—“right of action frst
accrues”—different meanings in different contexts, even
though those words had a single, well-settled meaning when
Congress enacted § 2401(a). See Part III, supra. The
Board's interpretation would thereby decouple the statute of
limitations from any injury “such that the limitations period
begins to run before a plaintiff can fle a suit”—for some, but
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5
Proof Pending Publication
While the dissent attempts to cabin our precedent describing the
plaintiff-specifc standard accrual rule, nothing in those cases suggests
that the rule is only plaintiff-specifc for “plaintiff-specifc causes of ac-
tion.” Post, at 851; see, e. g., Gabelli v. SEC, 568 U. S. 442, 448 (2013)
(The “ `standard rule' ” that a “claim accrues `when the plaintiff has a com-
plete and present cause of action' ” has “governed since the 1830s” and
“appears in dictionaries from the 19th century up until today”). And re-
gardless, the dissent's assertion that “administrative-law claims” are not
“plaintiff specifc,” post, at 847, is mystifying given that an APA plaintiff
cannot sue until she suffers an injury, see 5 U. S. C. § 702; n. 1, supra. By
emphasizing the plaintiff-agnostic aspects of facial challenges to agency
action, post, at 851–852, 857–859, the dissent confates the defendant-fo-
cused substance of an APA claim with its plaintiff-specifc cause of action.
6
Moreover, there may be cases where no one is injured and able to
sue at the time of fnal agency action—e. g., if the agency delays a rule's
enforcement—but the Board would still start the clock then. Cf. Toilet
Goods Assn., Inc. v. Gardner, 387 U. S. 158, 162–166 (1967) (agency rule
was fnal but challenge was not yet ripe). So the Board's position cannot
be reconciled even with a challenger-agnostic form of the traditional ac-
crual rule, which at least would require that someone have a complete and
present cause of action before the limitations period begins.
Cite as: 603 U. S. 799 (2024) 819
Opinion of the Court
not all, suits governed by § 2401(a). Green, 578 U. S., at 554.
We “will not infer such an odd result in the absence of any
such indication in the text of the limitations period.” Ibid.
(internal quotation marks omitted).
B
Turning to § 2401(a)'s text, the Board draws signifcance
from this sentence: “The action of any person under legal
disability or beyond the seas at the time the claim accrues
may be commenced within three years after the disability
ceases.” This language, the Board stresses, “necessarily re-
fects Congress's understanding that a claim can `accrue[ ]'
for purposes of Section 2401(a)” even when a person is unable
to sue. Brief for Respondent 24. True enough. It is a
mystery, however, why the Board fnds this helpful. The
tolling exception applies when the plaintiff had a complete
and present cause of action after he was injured but his legal
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disability or absence from the country “prevent[ed] him from
bringing a timely suit.” Goewey v. United States, 222 Ct.
Cl. 104, 113, 612 F. 2d 539, 544 (1979) (per curiam). What
matters for accrual is when the plaintiff had “the right to
apply to the court for relief,” not whether some external im-
pediment prevented her from doing so. Wood § 122a, at 684
(emphasis added). The exception, therefore, sheds no light
on when the clock started ticking for Corner Post—but it
does show Congress's concern for plaintiffs who might lose a
cause of action through no fault of their own.
C
The Board also leans on our precedent—namely, Reading
Co. v. Koons, 271 U. S. 58 (1926), and Crown Coat Front Co.
v. United States, 386 U. S. 503 (1967)—to support its unusual
interpretation of “accrual.” See also post, at 847–850 (Jack-
son, J., dissenting). Again, the Board comes up empty.
In Koons, we interpreted the statute of limitations under
the Federal Employers' Liability Act, which barred actions
820 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS
Opinion of the Court
brought more than two years after “ `the cause of action ac-
crued.' ” 271 U. S., at 60 (quoting ch. 149, § 6, 35 Stat. 66).
We held that the plaintiff's wrongful-death claim accrued
when the employee died, even though the estate's adminis-
trator was not appointed until later and the administrator
was “the only person authorized by the statute to maintain
the action.” 271 U. S., at 60. The Board interprets Koons
to hold that a claim accrued at a time when no plaintiff could
sue. Thus, the Board reasons, it is consistent with the
meaning of “accrue” to say that Corner Post's claim “ac-
crued” before it could sue.
The Board's characterization of Koons is incomplete.
Koons explained that the administrator “acts only for the
beneft of persons specifcally designated in the statute,” and
at the “time of death there are identifed persons for whose
beneft the liability exists and who can start the machinery
of the law in motion to enforce it, by applying for the ap-
pointment of an administrator.” Id., at 62. If a benefciary
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sued in her individual capacity immediately after the em-
ployee's death, she could amend her suit to describe herself
as “executor or administrator of the decedent.” Ibid. So
“at the death of decedent, there are real parties in interest
who may procure the action to be brought.” Id., at 62–63.
While it is true that the claim accrued before any particular
administrator was appointed, the benefciaries on whose be-
half any administrator would seek relief—the “real parties
in interest”—had the right to “procure the action” after the
employee died. Given this unique context, Koons does not
contradict the proposition that a claim generally accrues
when the plaintiff has a complete and present cause of action.
Nor does Crown Coat. That case concerned a contract
dispute in which a Government contractor sought an equita-
ble adjustment to the payment it received. 386 U. S., at 507.
The contract required the contractor to present its claim to
the contracting offcer and Armed Services Board of Con-
tract Appeals; its claim was “not subject to adjudication in
the courts” until it was denied by the Board. Id., at 511.
Cite as: 603 U. S. 799 (2024) 821
Opinion of the Court
The question presented was whether § 2401(a)'s statute of
limitations began to run when the Board issued its fnal de-
termination or at an earlier date. Id., at 507.
We held that the right of action frst accrued when the
Board denied the contractor's claim, because the contractor
had “the right to resort to the courts only upon the making
of that administrative determination.” Id., at 512. We ex-
plained that § 2401(a)'s phrase “right of action” refers to “the
right to fle a civil action in the courts against the United
States.” Id., at 511. Given the contract's administrative-
exhaustion requirement, “the contractor's claim was subject
only to administrative, not judicial, determination in the frst
instance”; the plaintiff was “not legally entitled to ask the
courts to adjudicate [its] claim as an original matter.” Id.,
at 511–512, 515. So its “claim or right to bring a civil action
against the United States” did not “matur[e]” until the Board
made its fnal decision. Id., at 514. Crown Coat thus sup-
ports Corner Post: The Court interpreted § 2401(a) to em-
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body the traditional rule that a claim accrues when the plain-
tiff has the right to bring suit in court.
Notwithstanding Crown Coat's holding, the Board and the
dissent try to marshal support from its dicta. The Court
noted that it is hazardous “to defne for all purposes when a
`cause of action' frst `accrues' ”; it cautioned that those words
should be “ `interpreted in the light of the general purposes
of the statute and of its other provisions' ” and the “ `practical
ends' ” served by time limitations. Id., at 517 (quoting
Koons, 271 U. S., at 62). Seizing on this language, the Board
insists that the word “accrues” is a chameleon, taking on dif-
ferent meanings in different contexts—and in the
administrative-law context, a right of action “accrues” when
a regulation is fnal, full stop. See also post, at 847 (Jack-
son, J., dissenting) (citing Crown Coat for the proposition
that “the word `accrues' lacks any fxed meaning”).
The Board and the dissent vastly overread—in fact, they
misread—Crown Coat. The Court did not suggest that the
same words “right of action frst accrues” in a single statute
822 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS
Opinion of the Court
should mean different things in different contexts—which is
how the Board and the dissent would have us interpret
§ 2401(a). Rather, the Court made its observation in the
course of distinguishing § 2401(a) from a statutory scheme
that departed from the traditional accrual rule.7 386 U. S.,
at 516–517. Moreover, as we have already explained, the
Court interpreted § 2401(a)—the very statute at issue in this
case—to start the clock when the plaintiff is “legally enti-
tled” to fle suit. Id., at 515. It also specifcally rejected
the Government's position that the time can run even before
a plaintiff's “civil action against the United States matures.”
Id., at 514; see also ibid. (noting that the Government's posi-
tion “would have unfortunate impact”). We therefore do not
read Crown Coat's “general purposes” language to contradict
either its holding or the “ `standard rule' for limitations peri-
ods.” Green, 578 U. S., at 554.
Even if Crown Coat's dicta supported sapping “accrues” of
Page Proof Pending Publication
any “fxed meaning,” post, at 847 (Jackson, J., dissenting), this
approach has been contravened by the weight of subsequent
precedent. Our limitations cases from the last several dec-
ades have instead emphasized the strength of the traditional,
plaintiff-centric accrual rule and demanded that departures
be justifed by the statutory “text of the limitations period.”
Green, 578 U. S., at 554; see also, e. g., Graham County, 545
7
The Court distinguished the limitations scheme at issue in McMahon
v. United States, 342 U. S. 25 (1951). That scheme involved two statutes:
one requiring “actions to be brought within two years after `the cause of
action arises' ” and another “permit[ting] court action only if the claim
ha[d] been administratively disallowed, but set[ting] no time within which
a claim must be presented to the administrative body.” Crown Coat, 386
U. S., at 516–517. The McMahon Court held that the claim accrued not
after the administrative disallowance that would enable the plaintiff to
sue in court, but at the time of the plaintiff's earlier injury. 342 U. S., at
27. Crown Coat attributed this holding to the unique two-statute con-
text: “[P]ostpon[ing] the usual time of accrual of the cause of action [i. e.,
the time of injury] until the date of disallowance” would have “permit[ted]
the claimant to postpone indefnitely the commencement of the running of
the statutory period.” 386 U. S., at 517; see McMahon, 342 U. S., at 27.
Cite as: 603 U. S. 799 (2024) 823
Opinion of the Court
U. S., at 418–419 (explaining that in Reiter v. Cooper, 507
U. S., at 267, the Court “declin[ed] to countenance the `odd
result' that a federal cause of action and statute of limita-
tions arise at different times `absen[t] . . . any such indication
in the statute' ”); Bay Area Laundry, 522 U. S., at 201.
D
Finally, the Board raises policy concerns. It emphasizes
that agencies and regulated parties need the fnality of a 6-
year cutoff. After that point, facial challenges impose sig-
nifcant burdens on agencies and courts. Moreover, if they
are successful, such challenges upset the reliance interests
of the agencies and regulated parties that have long operated
under existing rules. See also post, at 859–865 (Jackson,
J., dissenting).
“[P]leas of administrative inconvenience . . . never `justify
departing from the statute's clear text.' ” Niz-Chavez v.
Page Proof Pending Publication
Garland, 593 U. S. 155, 169 (2021) (quoting Pereira v. Ses-
sions, 585 U. S. 198, 217 (2018)). Congress could have cho-
sen different language in § 2401(a) or created a general stat-
ute of repose for agencies. It did not.
That is enough to dispatch the Board's policy arguments,
but we add that its concerns are overstated. Put aside fa-
cial challenges like Corner Post's. Regulated parties “may
always assail a regulation as exceeding the agency's statu-
tory authority in enforcement proceedings against them” or
“petition an agency to reconsider a longstanding rule and
then appeal the denial of that petition.” Herr, 803 F. 3d, at
821–822. So even on the Board's preferred interpretation,
“[a] federal regulation that makes it six years without being
contested does not enter a promised land free from legal
challenge.” Id., at 821. Likewise, the dissent imagines an
alternative reality of total fnality that simply does not exist.
See post, at 862–864.
Moreover, the opportunity to challenge agency action does
not mean that new plaintiffs will always win or that courts
and agencies will need to expend signifcant resources to ad-
824 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS
Opinion of the Court
dress each new suit. Given that major regulations are typi-
cally challenged immediately, courts entertaining later chal-
lenges often will be able to rely on binding Supreme Court
or circuit precedent. If neither this Court nor the relevant
court of appeals has weighed in, a court may be able to look
to other circuits for persuasive authority. And if no other
authority upholding the agency action is persuasive, the
court may have more work to do, but there is all the more
reason for it to consider the merits of the newcomer's
challenge.8
Turning to the other side of the policy ledger, the Board
slights the arguments supporting the plaintiff-centric accrual
rule. In addition to being compelled by § 2401(a)'s text, this
rule vindicates the APA's “basic presumption” that anyone
injured by agency action should have access to judicial re-
view. Abbott Labs., 387 U. S., at 140. It also respects our
“deep-rooted historic tradition that everyone should have his
own day in court.” Richards v. Jefferson County, 517 U. S.
Page Proof Pending Publication
793, 798 (1996) (internal quotation marks omitted). Under
the Board's fnality rule, only those fortunate enough to suf-
fer an injury within six years of a rule's promulgation may
bring an APA suit. Everyone else—no matter how serious
the injury or how illegal the rule—has no recourse.9
8
It also may be that some injuries can only be suffered by entities that
existed at the time of the challenged action. Corner Post suggests that
only parties that existed during the rulemaking process can claim to have
been injured by a “procedural” shortcoming, like a defcient notice of pro-
posed rulemaking. Reply Brief 18–19. We need not resolve that issue
here because there is no dispute that Corner Post proffered an injury
that does not depend on its having existed when the Board promulgated
Regulation II: the rule's alleged confict with the Durbin Amendment.
The dissent's observation that “the claims in this case are procedural,”
post, at 859, is confused. Even if some of Corner Post's claims might be
procedural, its central claim—that the regulation violates the statute—is
a prototypical substantive challenge.
9
Corner Post has no other way to obtain meaningful review of Regula-
tion II. Because Regulation II does not directly regulate it, it will never
be subject to enforcement actions in which it may challenge the rule's
Cite as: 603 U. S. 799 (2024) 825
Opinion of the Court
The dissent also raises a host of policy arguments masqu-
erading as “matter[s] of congressional intent.” Post, at 859–
865. And it warns that today's opinion will “devastate the
functioning of the Federal Government.” Post, at 864–865.
This claim is baffing—indeed, bizarre—in a case about a
statute of limitations. The Solicitor General, whose man-
date is to protect the interests of the Federal Government,
comes nowhere close to suggesting that a plaintiff-centric in-
terpretation of § 2401(a) spells the end of the United States
as we know it. Perhaps the dissent believes that the Code
of Federal Regulations is full of substantively illegal regula-
tions vulnerable to meritorious challenges; or perhaps it be-
lieves that meritless challenges will food federal courts that
are too incompetent to reject them. We have more conf-
dence in both the Executive Branch and the Judiciary. But
we do agree with the dissent on one point: “ `[T]he ball is in
Congress' court.' ” Post, at 865 (quoting Ledbetter v. Good-
year Tire & Rubber Co., 550 U. S. 618, 661 (2007) (Ginsburg,
Page Proof Pending Publication
J., dissenting)). Section 2401(a) is 75 years old. If it is a
poor ft for modern APA litigation, the solution is for Con-
gress to enact a distinct statute of limitations for the APA.
* * *
An APA claim does not accrue for purposes of § 2401(a)'s
6-year statute of limitations until the plaintiff is injured by
fnal agency action. Because Corner Post fled suit within
six years of its injury, § 2401(a) did not bar its challenge to
Regulation II. We reverse the Eighth Circuit's judgment to
the contrary and remand the case for further proceedings
consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
legality. See n. 2, supra. Nor is the ability to petition the Board for
rulemaking to change Regulation II a suffcient substitute for de novo
judicial review of its lawfulness: The agency's “discretionary decision to
decline to take new action” would be subject only to “deferential judicial
review.” PDR Network, LLC v. Carlton & Harris Chiropractic, Inc., 588
U. S. 1, 25 (2019) (Kavanaugh, J., concurring in judgment).
826 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS
Kavanaugh, J., concurring
Justice Kavanaugh, concurring.
I agree with the Court that a claim under the Administra-
tive Procedure Act accrues when the plaintiff is injured by
the challenged agency rule. I also agree with the Court
that today's decision vindicates the APA's “ `basic presump-
tion' that anyone injured by agency action should have ac-
cess to judicial review.” Ante, at 824 (quoting Abbott Labo-
ratories v. Gardner, 387 U. S. 136, 140 (1967)).
I write separately to explain a crucial additional point:
Corner Post can obtain relief in this case only because the
APA authorizes vacatur of agency rules.
Corner Post challenged an agency rule that regulates the
fees that banks may charge. But Corner Post is not a bank
regulated by the rule. Rather, it is a business that must
pay the fees charged by the banks who are regulated by
the rule. Corner Post complains that the agency rule allows
banks to charge fees that are unreasonably high.
Page Proof Pending Publication
Corner Post's suit is a typical APA suit. An unregulated
plaintiff such as Corner Post often will sue under the APA
to challenge an allegedly unlawful agency rule that regulates
others but also has adverse downstream effects on the plain-
tiff. In those cases, an injunction barring the agency from
enforcing the rule against the plaintiff would not help the
plaintiff, because the plaintiff is not regulated by the rule in
the frst place. Instead, the unregulated plaintiff can obtain
meaningful relief only if the APA authorizes vacatur of the
agency rule, thereby remedying the adverse downstream ef-
fects of the rule on the unregulated plaintiff.
The APA empowers federal courts to “hold unlawful and
set aside agency action” that, as relevant here, is arbitrary
and capricious or is contrary to law. 5 U. S. C. § 706(2).
The Federal Government and the federal courts have long
understood § 706(2) to authorize vacatur of unlawful agency
rules, including in suits by unregulated plaintiffs who are
adversely affected by an agency's regulation of others.
Cite as: 603 U. S. 799 (2024) 827
Kavanaugh, J., concurring
Recently, the Government has advanced a far-reaching ar-
gument that the APA does not allow vacatur. See Brief for
Respondent 42; Brief for United States in United States v.
Texas, O. T. 2022, No. 22–58, pp. 40–44. Invoking a few law
review articles, the Government contends that the APA's au-
thorization to “set aside” agency action does not allow vaca-
tur, but instead permits a court only to enjoin an agency
from enforcing a rule against the plaintiff.
If the Government were correct on that point, Corner Post
could not obtain any relief in this suit because, to reiterate,
Corner Post is not regulated by the rule to begin with. And
the APA would supply no remedy for most other unregu-
lated but adversely affected parties who traditionally have
brought, and regularly still bring, APA suits challenging
agency rules.
The Government's position would revolutionize long-
settled administrative law—shutting the door on entire
classes of everyday administrative law cases. The Govern-
Page Proof Pending Publication
ment's newly minted position is both novel and wrong. It
“disregards a lot of history and a lot of law.” M. Sohoni, The
Past and Future of Universal Vacatur, 133 Yale L. J. 2305,
2311 (2024).
The APA authorizes vacatur of agency rules; therefore,
Corner Post can obtain relief in this case.
I
Corner Post owns a truck stop and convenience store in
rural North Dakota. When a customer uses a debit card at its
business, Corner Post must pay a fee (known as an interchange
fee) to the bank that processes the customer's transaction.
As the Court explains, the Dodd-Frank Act requires the
Federal Reserve Board to “prescribe regulations” for assess-
ing whether interchange fees are “reasonable and propor-
tional to the cost incurred” in processing a debit-card trans-
action. 15 U. S. C. § 1693o–2(a)(3)(A); see ante, at 805.
828 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS
Kavanaugh, J., concurring
Pursuant to the Act, the Board has issued a rule that sets a
maximum fee of about 21 cents per transaction. 76 Fed.
Reg. 43394, 43420 (2011). For convenience, I will refer to
that rule as the fee rule.
Corner Post is not subject to the fee rule. Corner Post
does not charge interchange fees to its customers, and Cor-
ner Post lacks any authority to set those fees. But because
Corner Post must pay the fees to banks, it is affected by
the agency's rule setting the maximum fees that banks may
charge. In particular, Corner Post would be harmed by a
fee rule that allows unreasonably high fees and would beneft
from a fee rule that more strictly limits the fees that banks
may charge.
The APA authorizes any person who has been “adversely
affected or aggrieved” by a “fnal agency action” to obtain
judicial review in federal district court. 5 U. S. C. §§ 702,
704. In an APA suit, the district court “shall” “hold unlaw-
Page Proof Pending Publication
ful and set aside agency action” that is “arbitrary, capricious,
an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with
law.” § 706(2)(A).
Corner Post fled this APA suit because it believes that
the fee rule allows banks to charge unreasonably high fees.
In particular, Corner Post argues that the Board's 21-cent
fee cap is unreasonably high and therefore arbitrary and ca-
pricious under the APA. Corner Post asked the Federal
District Court to vacate the fee rule on the ground that the
Board must more strictly regulate bank fees (in other words,
that the Board must set a lower cap on the fees that banks
may charge).
Corner Post would not be able to obtain relief in its lawsuit
through any remedy other than vacatur. Corner Post could
not obtain relief through an injunction forbidding the Board
from enforcing the rule against it. That is because the rule
does not regulate Corner Post and therefore is not and can-
not be enforced against Corner Post in the frst place. Nor
could Corner Post secure relief through an injunction against
Cite as: 603 U. S. 799 (2024) 829
Kavanaugh, J., concurring
banks; the APA does not authorize suits against private
parties.
Corner Post instead needs a remedy that acts directly on
the fee rule—specifcally, by vacating it. Indeed, without
vacatur, it is hard to imagine what kind of lawsuit Corner
Post could fle. At oral argument, the Government ulti-
mately seemed to acknowledge that reality and the necessity
of the vacatur remedy if Corner Post is to obtain any relief
in this case. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 76 (“it's possible that the
only way to provide this party relief would be vacatur”).1
II
For Corner Post to obtain relief, an important question
therefore is whether the APA authorizes vacatur of unlawful
agency actions, including agency rules.
The answer is yes—in light of the text and history of the
APA, the longstanding and settled precedent adhering to
that text and history, and the radical consequences for ad-
Page Proof Pending Publication
ministrative law and individual liberty that would ensue if
vacatur were suddenly no longer available.
The text and history of the APA authorize vacatur. The
text directs courts to “set aside” unlawful agency actions. 5
U. S. C. § 706(2)(A). When Congress enacted the APA in
1946, the phrase “set aside” meant “cancel, annul, or revoke.”
Black's Law Dictionary 1612 (3d ed. 1933); see also Black's
Law Dictionary 1537 (4th ed. 1951) (same); Bouvier's Law
Dictionary 1105 (W. Baldwin ed. 1926) (“To annul; to make
void: as, to set aside an award”). At that time, it was com-
1
A plaintiff could not challenge the fee rule by suing to “compel agency
action” that is “unlawfully withheld or unreasonably delayed.” 5 U. S. C.
§ 706(1). The remedy of compelling agency action applies if an agency
fails to issue a required rule. But here, the Board issued a rule, and the
question is whether the rule set a reasonable fee cap. It would therefore
make little sense to say that the fee rule has been “withheld” or “delayed.”
Indeed, it seems that § 706(1) has almost never been used to challenge
extant agency rules, as opposed to challenging the absence of required
rules.
830 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS
Kavanaugh, J., concurring
mon for an appellate court that reversed the decision of a
lower court to direct that the lower court's “judgment” be
“set aside,” meaning vacated. E. g., Shawkee Mfg. Co. v.
Hartford-Empire Co., 322 U. S. 271, 274 (1944). Likewise,
Congress used the phrase “set aside” in many pre-APA stat-
utes that plainly contemplated the vacatur of agency
actions.2
The APA incorporated that common and contemporaneous
meaning of “set aside.” When a federal court sets aside an
agency action, the federal court vacates that order—in much
the same way that an appellate court vacates the judgment
of a trial court.
The APA prescribes the same “set aside” remedy for all
categories of “agency action,” including agency adjudicative
orders and agency rules. §§ 551(13), 706(2). When a fed-
eral court concludes that an agency adjudicative order is un-
lawful, the court must vacate that order. Around the time
Page Proof Pending Publication
when Congress enacted the APA, the phrase “set aside” the
agency order meant vacate that order. See, e. g., United
States v. L. A. Tucker Truck Lines, Inc., 344 U. S. 33, 38
(1952). And because federal courts must “set aside” agency
rules in the same way that they set aside agency orders,
successful challenges to agency rules must award the same
remedy. See M. Sohoni, The Power To Vacate a Rule, 88
Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 1121, 1131–1134 (2020). In short, to “set
aside” a rule is to vacate it.
Longstanding precedent reinforces the text. Over the
decades, this Court has affrmed countless decisions that va-
cated agency actions, including agency rules. See, e. g., De-
2
See, e. g., Hepburn Act of 1906, ch. 3591, § 5, 34 Stat. 584, 592 (courts
could “enjoin, set aside, annul, or suspend any order or requirement of ”
the Interstate Commerce Commission); Securities Exchange Act of 1934,
ch. 404, § 25(a), 48 Stat. 881, 902 (authorizing courts “to affrm, modify, and
enforce or set aside [an] order” of the SEC); Federal Food, Drug, and
Cosmetic Act of 1938, ch. 675, § 701(f)(3), 52 Stat. 1040, 1055–1056 (author-
izing a court to “affrm the order” of the FDA, “or to set it aside in whole
or in part, temporarily or permanently”).
Cite as: 603 U. S. 799 (2024) 831
Kavanaugh, J., concurring
partment of Homeland Security v. Regents of Univ. of Cal.,
591 U. S. 1, 36, and n. 7 (2020); Whitman v. American Truck-
ing Assns., Inc., 531 U. S. 457, 486 (2001); Board of Gover-
nors, FRS v. Dimension Financial Corp., 474 U. S. 361, 364–
365 (1986). Those decisions vacated the challenged agency
rules rather than merely providing injunctive relief that en-
joined enforcement of the rules against the specifc plaintiffs.
See, e. g., Regents of Univ. of Cal., 591 U. S., at 9 (holding
that the rescission of a major federal program “must be va-
cated”). And the D. C. Circuit—which handles the lion's
share of the country's administrative law cases—has likewise
long recognized vacatur as the usual relief when a court
holds that agency rules are unlawful. See, e. g., National
Mining Assn. v. United States Army Corps of Engineers,
145 F. 3d 1399, 1409 (CADC 1998). In the words of the D. C.
Circuit: “When a reviewing court determines that agency
regulations are unlawful, the ordinary result is that the rules
Page Proof Pending Publication
are vacated—not that their application to the individual peti-
tioners is proscribed.” Harmon v. Thornburgh, 878 F. 2d
484, 495, n. 21 (CADC 1989).
Importantly, as Corner Post's lawsuit shows, the availabil-
ity of vacatur determines not only the extent of the relief
that courts may award in APA suits by regulated parties,
but also whether unregulated parties can obtain relief under
the APA at all. In most APA litigation brought by unregu-
lated but adversely affected parties, a plaintiff can obtain
relief only through vacatur of the adverse agency action.
Prohibiting courts from vacating agency actions would es-
sentially close the courthouse doors on those unregulated
plaintiffs—a radical change to administrative law that would
insulate a broad swath of agency actions from any judicial
review.3
3
Most of the recent academic and judicial discussion of this issue has
addressed suits by regulated parties. That discussion has largely missed
a major piece of the issue—suits by unregulated but adversely affected
parties.
832 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS
Kavanaugh, J., concurring
Vacatur is therefore essential to fulfll the “basic presump-
tion of judicial review” for parties who have been “adversely
affected or aggrieved” by federal agency action. Abbott
Laboratories v. Gardner, 387 U. S. 136, 140 (1967) (quotation
marks omitted). The Court has long applied that “strong
presumption” unless there is a “persuasive reason to believe”
that Congress intended to bar review of certain actions.
Bowen v. Michigan Academy of Family Physicians, 476
U. S. 667, 670 (1986) (quotation marks omitted); see also, e. g.,
Weyerhaeuser Co. v. United States Fish and Wildlife Serv.,
586 U. S. 9, 22–23 (2018); Sackett v. EPA, 566 U. S. 120, 128–
131 (2012). Eliminating the vacatur remedy would contra-
vene the strong Abbott Laboratories presumption by insu-
lating many agency rules from meaningful judicial review
(which perhaps is the Government's motivation for its re-
cent campaign).
The absence of vacatur would also create an asymmetry.
For example, without the vacatur remedy, a bank could still
Page Proof Pending Publication
challenge the Board's regulation of interchange fees in a suit
for injunctive relief. The bank might argue that the fee cap
is too low and that the Board should be enjoined from enforc-
ing the cap against the bank—a result that would allow the
bank to charge higher fees. But because Corner Post is not
subject to the Board's regulation, it could not contend that
the fee cap is too high and that the Board should be enjoined
from keeping the cap so high. So Corner Post would be
precluded from suing even though the allegedly unlawful
regulation is causing it monetary injury.4
4
Absent vacatur, the remedy for a regulated plaintiff would not auto-
matically extend to other regulated parties. For example, if a district
court issued an injunction that prevents the Board from enforcing the fee
rule against one bank, the Board would still be able to enforce the fee rule
against other banks. For those other banks to obtain the same relief,
they would need to either (i) fle similar APA suits and request similar
injunctions or (ii) wait and see if the fee rule is temporarily enjoined or
held unlawful by either the relevant court of appeals or this Court. In
that respect, eliminating the vacatur remedy would delay relief for many
Cite as: 603 U. S. 799 (2024) 833
Kavanaugh, J., concurring
III
Eliminating vacatur as a remedy would terminate entire
classes of administrative litigation that have traditionally
been brought by unregulated parties.5
One example is the wide range of administrative law suits
in which businesses target the allegedly unlawful under-
regulation of other businesses, such as their competitors.
For example, in National Credit Union Administration v.
First National Bank & Trust Co., several banks challenged
the decision of a federal agency to approve a series of amend-
ments to the charter of a federal credit union, a competitor of
the banks. 522 U. S. 479, 484–485 (1998). The amendments
were controversial because they expanded the markets in
which the credit union could operate, thereby increasing
competition against the banks. The Court held that the
banks could sue under the APA to challenge the agency's
approval of those charter amendments, and also that the
Page Proof Pending Publication
agency's approval of the amendments was unlawful. Of
course, the District Court could remedy the banks' harm
only by vacating the approval of the amendments. In short,
for the plaintiff in First National Bank to have a remedy,
the APA must have authorized vacatur.
regulated parties. That said, in light of vertical stare decisis, the conse-
quences for regulated parties of eliminating vacatur would not be as se-
vere as the consequences for unregulated parties. See Labrador v. Poe,
601 U. S. –––, ––– (2024) (Kavanaugh, J., concurring in grant of stay); cf.
W. Baude & S. Bray, Proper Parties, Proper Relief, 137 Harv. L. Rev. 153,
183 (2023) (when the Supreme Court “holds a statute to be unconstitu-
tional or a rule to be unlawful, it may be as good as vacated”).
5
This opinion focuses primarily on administrative litigation that arises
under the APA. But Congress has also enacted special statutory review
provisions that similarly authorize federal courts to “set aside” specifc
agency actions. See, e. g., 15 U. S. C. § 78y(a) (orders of the SEC); 16
U. S. C. § 825l(b) (FERC); 28 U. S. C. § 2342 (the FCC, the Atomic Energy
Commission, and other agencies). By arguing that the APA's use of “set
aside” does not authorize vacatur, the Government implies that vacatur is
also unavailable under those similar review provisions.
834 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS
Kavanaugh, J., concurring
Those competitor suits are ubiquitous in administrative
law. Some plaintiffs have challenged the favorable classif-
cation of a competitor's drugs or medical products, see, e. g.,
American Bioscience, Inc. v. Thompson, 269 F. 3d 1077
(CADC 2001); a research guideline that increased competi-
tion for federal grants, see, e. g., Sherley v. Sebelius, 610
F. 3d 69 (CADC 2010); and a competitor's exemption from a
generally applicable rule, see, e. g., Regular Common Car-
rier Conference v. United States, 793 F. 2d 376 (CADC 1986)
(arose under the review provision in 28 U. S. C. § 2342). The
Court has consistently held that the plaintiffs incurring those
injuries are “adversely affected or aggrieved by agency ac-
tion” within the meaning of the APA. 5 U. S. C. § 702; see
First Nat. Bank, 522 U. S., at 488, 499; Investment Company
Institute v. Camp, 401 U. S. 617, 618–621 (1971); Association
of Data Processing Service Organizations, Inc. v. Camp, 397
U. S. 150, 157 (1970). But such competitor suits would be
Page Proof Pending Publication
largely if not entirely eradicated if the APA and similar stat-
utory review provisions did not authorize vacatur.
Suits where one business challenges the under-regulation
of another go well beyond competitor suits. One example is
the Court's landmark decision in Motor Vehicle Manufactur-
ers Association of United States, Inc. v. State Farm Mutual
Automobile Insurance Co., 463 U. S. 29 (1983). That case
arose when several insurance companies challenged a federal
agency's rescission of safety standards for new motor vehi-
cles. The Court held that the agency's decision to rescind
those safety standards was subject to the same degree of
judicial review as the decision to issue the standards in the
frst place. See id., at 40–44. The Court also concluded
that the rescission of the safety standards was arbitrary and
capricious. See id., at 44–57.
At no point in that landmark opinion on the judicial review
of agency actions did the Court state (or need to state) the
obvious: Because the agency did not regulate the insurers
themselves, the insurers could obtain relief from the down-
Cite as: 603 U. S. 799 (2024) 835
Kavanaugh, J., concurring
stream effects of the agency's rescission of the safety stand-
ards only if the insurers could obtain vacatur of that rescis-
sion. The Court did not dwell on that remedial point
because the availability of vacatur was presumably obvious
to all involved. Only now—some 40 years later—does the
Government imply that the premise of State Farm was
mistaken.
The Government's new position would also largely elimi-
nate the common form of environmental litigation where pri-
vate citizens sue a federal agency based on the externalities
that an agency action is likely to produce. Litigation often
arises when a federal agency approves a development project
with potential effects on the environment or on other prop-
erty owners. Examples include the construction of a new
pipeline, see Delaware Riverkeeper Network v. FERC, 753
F. 3d 1304 (CADC 2014), or the mining of federal land, see
WildEarth Guardians v. Jewell, 738 F. 3d 298 (CADC 2013).
Page Proof Pending Publication
In those cases, the plaintiff generally cannot bring an APA
suit against the developer, who is usually a private party.
See § 704 (authorizing review of “agency action”). Instead,
the plaintiff typically sues the federal agency that approved
the development and asks a federal court to vacate that
approval.
Some of those suits proceed under the APA; others pro-
ceed under federal statutory review provisions that similarly
authorize courts to “set aside” agency action. See, e. g., 15
U. S. C. § 717r(b) (Natural Gas Act); 16 U. S. C. § 825l(b) (Fed-
eral Power Act). Regardless, all of those suits depend on
the availability of vacatur.
Many APA suits similarly challenge federal emissions lim-
its or effciency standards for cars, trucks, and other sources
of pollution. See, e. g., American Public Gas Assn. v. De-
partment of Energy, 72 F. 4th 1324 (CADC 2023). When a
plaintiff alleges that an emissions limit does too little to stop
third parties from polluting the environment, the plaintiff
cannot bring an APA suit against the third party. Rather,
836 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS
Kavanaugh, J., concurring
the plaintiff must sue the agency that enacted the emissions
limit. If the vacatur remedy were unavailable, the agency
that enacted the emissions limit would never face litigation
from unregulated parties seeking stricter limits; the agency
could face litigation only from regulated parties seeking
looser limits.
Workers and their unions also regularly challenge agency
rules that rescind or loosen federal workplace safety stand-
ards. See, e. g., Transportation Div. of Int'l Assn. of Sheet
Metal, Air, Rail, and Transp. Workers v. Federal Railroad
Admin., 988 F. 3d 1170 (CA9 2021) (railroad industry);
United Steel v. Mine Safety and Health Admin., 925 F. 3d
1279 (CADC 2019) (mining industry). Those suits often
arise under statutory review provisions that, like the APA,
authorize courts to “set aside” agency actions. See, e. g., 28
U. S. C. § 2342(7) (railroad industry); 30 U. S. C. § 816(a)(1)
(mining industry). And the suits all depend on the availabil-
Page Proof Pending Publication
ity of vacatur as a remedy. In particular, the workers may
prevail in those suits only through vacatur of the agency
rules. So if “set aside” did not mean vacate, workplace
safety rules could be challenged from only one direction—by
employers who want less regulation, not by workers who
want more regulation.
The examples of standard agency litigation that depend on
the availability of vacatur are seemingly endless. Vacatur
was essential when American workers challenged a Depart-
ment of Labor rule that unlawfully allowed employers to ac-
cess inexpensive foreign labor, with the effect of lowering
American workers' wages. See Mendoza v. Perez, 754 F. 3d
1002 (CADC 2014). Vacatur was essential when a county
challenged the Department of the Interior's allowance for
Indian gaming on nearby land. See Butte Cty. v. Hogen, 613
F. 3d 190 (CADC 2010). Vacatur is often essential when a
State challenges an agency action that does not regulate the
State directly but has adverse downstream effects on the
Cite as: 603 U. S. 799 (2024) 837
Kavanaugh, J., concurring
State. See, e. g., Department of Commerce v. New York, 588
U. S. 752 (2019).6
I will stop there. But to be clear, I could go on all day
(and then some) listing cases where vacatur was necessary
for an unregulated but adversely affected plaintiff in an APA
suit to obtain relief.
IV
Against all of that text, history, precedent, and common
sense, the Government has recently rejected the straightfor-
ward and long-accepted conclusion that the phrase “set
aside” in the APA authorizes vacatur. Instead, the Govern-
ment contends that plaintiffs harmed by agency rules must
seek injunctions against enforcement of those rules. See
Brief for United States in United States v. Texas, O. T. 2022,
No. 22–58, pp. 40–44. One effect of the Government's new
position would be to insulate many agency rules from mean-
ingful judicial review in suits by unregulated but adversely
Page Proof Pending Publication
affected parties.
To support its new position, the Government has offered
an array of arguments.
6
In some circumstances, usually when a court rules that an agency must
provide additional explanation for the challenged agency action or must
regulate some entity or activity more extensively, some courts have re-
manded to the agency without vacatur. Remand without vacatur is es-
sentially a shorthand way of vacating a rule and staying the vacatur pend-
ing the agency's completion of an additional required action, such as
providing additional explanation or issuing a new, more stringent rule. I
do not address that practice here, which has been the subject of some
debate. See Checkosky v. SEC, 23 F. 3d 452, 462–465 (CADC 1994) (Sil-
berman, J.) (explaining the practice); see also id., at 493, n. 37 (Randolph,
J.) (noting that courts and parties alternatively may avoid any “diffculties”
associated with vacatur by “a stay of the mandate”). Importantly for
present purposes, the view that vacatur is “authorized by the APA is a
basic proposition shared by both sides of the debate over remand without
vacatur.” M. Sohoni, The Power To Vacate a Rule, 88 Geo. Wash. L. Rev.
1121, 1178 (2020).
838 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS
Kavanaugh, J., concurring
First, the Government says that vacatur of a federal rule
is akin to a nationwide injunction—in other words, an injunc-
tion that prohibits the Government from enforcing a law
against anyone, not just the parties in a specifc case. The
Government has contended that equitable relief is ordinarily
limited to the parties in a specifc case. Therefore, nation-
wide injunctions would be permissible only if Congress au-
thorized them.
But in the APA, Congress did in fact depart from that
baseline and authorize vacatur. As noted above, the text of
the APA expressly authorizes federal courts to “set aside”
agency action. 5 U. S. C. § 706(2). “Unlike judicial review
of statutes, in which courts enter judgments and decrees
only against litigants, the APA” and related statutory review
provisions “go further by empowering the judiciary to act
directly against the challenged agency action.” J. Mitchell,
The Writ-of-Erasure Fallacy, 104 Va. L. Rev. 933, 1012 (2018).
The text of § 706(2) directs federal courts to vacate agency
Page Proof Pending Publication
actions in the same way that appellate courts vacate the
judgments of trial courts. See M. Sohoni, The Power To
Vacate a Rule, 88 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 1121, 1131–1134 (2020).
The text of the APA therefore authorizes vacatur of agency
rules. By contrast, Congress has rarely authorized courts
to act directly on federal statutes or to prohibit their enforce-
ment against nonparties. As a result, background equitable
principles may control in those non-APA cases.
Second, the Government argues that the remedies avail-
able in APA suits are not governed by § 706(2), which directs
courts to “set aside” agency action, but instead are governed
by § 703. That argument is weak. Section 703 determines
the “form of proceeding” for suits under the APA and identi-
fes the federal actors against whom an “action for judicial
review may be brought.” 7 But “no court has ever held that
7
Section 703 states: “The form of proceeding for judicial review is the
special statutory review proceeding relevant to the subject matter in a
court specifed by statute or, in the absence or inadequacy thereof, any
Cite as: 603 U. S. 799 (2024) 839
Kavanaugh, J., concurring
Section 703 implicitly delimits the kinds of remedies avail-
able in an APA suit.” M. Sohoni, The Past and Future of
Universal Vacatur, 133 Yale L. J. 2305, 2337 (2024). For
good reason: As explained above, the ordinary meaning of
“set aside” in § 706(2) has long been understood to refer to
the remedy of vacatur. The conclusion that § 706 governs
remedies is also supported by § 706(1), which authorizes
courts to “compel agency action unlawfully withheld or un-
reasonably delayed”—unmistakably a remedy. By contrast,
the text of § 703 “speaks to venue and forms of proceedings,
not to remedies, and regardless, its listing of the available
forms of proceedings is nonexhaustive.” Sohoni, The Past
and Future of Universal Vacatur, 133 Yale L. J., at 2337.
To support its novel reliance on § 703, the Government
suggests that the phrase “set aside” in § 706(2) may refer to
a “rule of decision directing the reviewing court to disregard
unlawful” agency actions in “resolving the case before it,”
Page Proof Pending Publication
rather than the remedy of vacatur. Brief for United States
in United States v. Texas, O. T. 2022, No. 22–58, at 40. But
the leading cases and legal dictionaries at the time of the
APA's enactment did not use “set aside” in that manner.
They instead referred to setting aside (that is, vacating)
judgments—a meaning entirely consistent with the APA's
authorization to vacate agency actions. See supra, at 830.
The Government's position instead relies on some colloquial
uses of the phrase “set aside” in federal constitutional chal-
lenges to state statutes. See, e. g., Brief for United States
in United States v. Texas, O. T. 2022, No. 22–58, at 41 (citing
applicable form of legal action, including actions for declaratory judgments
or writs of prohibitory or mandatory injunction or habeas corpus, in a
court of competent jurisdiction. If no special statutory review proceeding
is applicable, the action for judicial review may be brought against the
United States, the agency by its offcial title, or the appropriate offcer.
Except to the extent that prior, adequate, and exclusive opportunity for
judicial review is provided by law, agency action is subject to judicial re-
view in civil or criminal proceedings for judicial enforcement.”
840 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS
Kavanaugh, J., concurring
Mallinckrodt Chemical Works v. Missouri ex rel. Jones, 238
U. S. 41, 54 (1915)); see also Mallinckrodt, 238 U. S., at 54
(referring to “one who seeks to set aside a state statute as
repugnant to the Federal Constitution”). That is a thin
basis for suddenly prohibiting entire categories of long-
common administrative litigation.
Third, the Government seizes on legislative history to
argue that Congress did not expect the APA to create new
remedies against unlawful agency actions. But vacatur was
not a new remedy. On the contrary, several pre-APA stat-
utes authorized courts to “set aside” specifc kinds of agency
actions, such as orders by the Interstate Commerce Commis-
sion. See n. 2, supra. This Court correctly understood
those statutes to authorize vacatur. For example, in litiga-
tion regarding the regulation of railroads, this Court held
that an unlawful ICC order was “void.” United States v.
Baltimore & Ohio R. Co., 293 U. S. 454, 464 (1935). Simi-
Page Proof Pending Publication
lar examples abound. See, e. g., Sohoni, The Past and Fu-
ture of Universal Vacatur, 133 Yale L. J., at 2329–2335 (col-
lecting cases). By similarly authorizing courts to “set aside”
agency actions, the APA likewise authorized vacatur.
§ 706(2).
Moreover, although vacatur was not as common in the
years surrounding the APA's enactment, there is a simple
explanation for that: Courts had few occasions to set aside
agency rules before this Court's 1967 decision in Abbott Lab-
oratories v. Gardner, which signifcantly expanded the op-
portunities for facial, pre-enforcement review of agency
rules. 387 U. S. 136, 139–141. Indeed, it was not until Ab-
bott Laboratories that “preenforcement review of agency
rules” became “the norm, not the exception.” S. Breyer &
R. Stewart, Administrative Law and Regulatory Policy 1137
(2d ed. 1985).
The Government's current position on vacatur would
de facto overrule Abbott Laboratories as to suits by unregu-
lated parties. Not surprisingly, the Government's current
Cite as: 603 U. S. 799 (2024) 841
Kavanaugh, J., concurring
position on vacatur sounds very similar to Justice Fortas'
dissent in a companion case to Abbott Laboratories, where
he lamented that in the wake of those decisions, a court
would be able to “suspend the operation of regulations in
their entirety.” Gardner v. Toilet Goods Assn., Inc., 387
U. S. 167, 175 (1967). In any event, to the extent that the
Government worries that vacatur of rules (as opposed to or-
ders) is more common today than it was in the 1950s, the
Government's true grievance is with Abbott Laboratories.
Fourth, the Government objects to the real-world conse-
quences that occur when a federal district court wrongly va-
cates a lawful rule. I appreciate that concern. But federal
law already gives the Government tools to mitigate those
consequences—if not avoid them altogether. When the
Government believes that a district court has erroneously
vacated a rule (or erroneously issued a preliminary injunc-
tion against a rule), the Government may promptly seek a
stay in the relevant federal court of appeals. To determine
Page Proof Pending Publication
whether to grant a stay, the court of appeals may then
promptly review the Government's likelihood of success on
the merits, among other factors. If the court of appeals de-
nies a stay, the Government may seek further review in this
Court. See Labrador v. Poe, 601 U. S. –––, ––– (2024) (Kav-
anaugh, J., concurring in grant of stay). The Government's
frustration with the occasional incorrect district court vaca-
tur of an agency rule is understandable. But especially
given the readily accessible and regularly utilized proce-
dures for staying a district court's vacatur,8 we should not
overreact by entirely gutting vacatur as a remedy and
thereby barring unregulated but adversely affected parties
from bringing APA suits.
Not surprisingly, when asked at oral argument in this case
about the extraordinary consequences of its new no-vacatur
position, the Government seemed to backpedal and hedge a
8
If the problem became suffciently severe, the Executive Branch could
always ask Congress to limit the remedies available under the APA.
842 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS
Kavanaugh, J., concurring
bit. The Government suggested that vacatur may actually
still be appropriate if it is “the only way to give the party
before the court relief.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 76. The Govern-
ment also said that “it's possible that the only way to pro-
vide” Corner Post “relief would be vacatur.” Ibid.
I appreciate the Government's apparent attempt to back
away from its extreme stance. But in doing so, the Govern-
ment also revealed the weakness of its position. The mean-
ing of “set aside” in the APA cannot reasonably depend on
the specifc party before the court. Either the APA author-
izes vacatur, or it does not.
More to the point, the Government's answer at oral argu-
ment is a solution in search of a problem. The federal courts
have long interpreted the APA to authorize vacatur of
agency actions. Both the text and the history of the APA
support that interpretation, and courts have had no real dif-
fculty applying the remedy in practice. Some 78 years
after the APA and 57 years after Abbott Laboratories, I
Page Proof Pending Publication
would not suddenly throw out that sound and settled inter-
pretation of the APA and eliminate entire classes of histori-
cally common and vitally important litigation against fed-
eral agencies.
* * *
The Government's crusade against vacatur would create
“strange and even absurd consequences.” Sohoni, The Past
and Future of Universal Vacatur, 133 Yale L. J., at 2340. In
this opinion, I have described one such consequence: It would
leave unregulated plaintiffs like Corner Post without a rem-
edy in APA challenges to agency rules. The Government's
position therefore would fundamentally reshape administra-
tive law, leaving administrative agencies with extraordinary
new power to issue rules free from potential suits by unregu-
lated but adversely affected parties—businesses, environ-
mental plaintiffs, workers, the list goes on.
I agree with the longstanding consensus—a consensus
based on text, history, precedent, and common sense—that
Cite as: 603 U. S. 799 (2024) 843
Jackson, J., dissenting
vacatur is an appropriate remedy when a federal court holds
that an agency rule is unlawful. Because vacatur remains
an available remedy under the APA, Corner Post can obtain
meaningful relief if it prevails in this lawsuit.
Justice Jackson, with whom Justice Sotomayor and
Justice Kagan join, dissenting.
More than half a century ago, this Court highlighted the
long-recognized “hazards inherent in attempting to defne for
all purposes when a `cause of action' frst `accrues.' ” Crown
Coat Front Co. v. United States, 386 U. S. 503, 517 (1967).
Today, the majority throws that caution to the wind and en-
gages in the same kind of misguided reasoning about statu-
tory limitations periods that we have previously admonished.
The fawed reasoning and far-reaching results of the
Court's ruling in this case are staggering. First, the reason-
ing. The text and context of the relevant statutory provi-
Page Proof Pending Publication
sions plainly reveal that, for facial challenges to agency regu-
lations, the 6-year limitations period in 28 U. S. C. § 2401(a)
starts running when the rule is published. The Court says
otherwise today, holding that the broad statutory term “ac-
crues” requires us to conclude that the limitations period for
Administrative Procedure Act (APA) claims runs from the
time of a plaintiff's injury. Never mind that this Court's
precedents tell us that the meaning of “accrues” is context
specifc. Never mind that, in the administrative-law con-
text, limitations statutes uniformly run from the moment of
agency action. Never mind that a plaintiff's injury is ut-
terly irrelevant to a facial APA claim. According to the
Court, we must ignore all of this because, for other kinds of
claims, accrual begins at the time of a plaintiff's injury.
Next, the results. The Court's baseless conclusion means
that there is effectively no longer any limitations period for
lawsuits that challenge agency regulations on their face.
Allowing every new commercial entity to bring fresh facial
challenges to long-existing regulations is profoundly destabi-
844 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS
Jackson, J., dissenting
lizing for both Government and businesses. It also allows
well-heeled litigants to game the system by creating new
entities or fnding new plaintiffs whenever they blow past
the statutory deadline.
The majority refuses to accept the straightforward, com-
monsense, and singularly plausible reading of the limitations
statute that Congress wrote. In doing so, the Court wreaks
havoc on Government agencies, businesses, and society at
large. I respectfully dissent.
I
When a claim accrues depends on the nature of the claim.
See Crown Coat, 386 U. S., at 517. So, understanding the
context in which these claims arose is essential to determin-
ing when Congress meant for them to accrue. The facts
of this very case illustrate the absurdity of the majority's
one-size-fts-all approach. The procedural history is also a
Page Proof Pending Publication
prime example of the gamesmanship that statutory limita-
tions periods are enacted to prevent.
A
Start with the relevant agency regulation. In 2010, Con-
gress required the Federal Reserve Board to issue rules for
debit-card transaction fees. See 15 U. S. C. § 1693o–2(a)(1).
The Board did as Congress instructed. As relevant here,
in 2011, the Board issued Regulation II, capping debit-card
interchange fees at 21 cents per transaction plus 0.05 percent
of the transaction. 76 Fed. Reg. 43420 (2011) (codifed at 12
CFR § 235.3(b) (2022)).
As often happens, affected parties challenged Regula-
tion II almost immediately after the Board issued it Sev-
eral large trade groups sued under the APA, alleging that
Regulation II was, in several respects, arbitrary, capricious,
and not in accordance with law. NACS v. Board of Gover-
nors of FRS, 958 F. Supp. 2d 85, 95–96 (DC 2013). Ulti-
mately, the D. C. Circuit rejected that challenge in relevant
part. NACS v. Board of Governors of FRS, 746 F. 3d 474,
Cite as: 603 U. S. 799 (2024) 845
Jackson, J., dissenting
477 (2014). And, a few months after that, we denied certio-
rari. See 574 U. S. 1121 (2015).
B
Now consider the facts of this challenge. In the majori-
ty's telling, this is about a single “truckstop and convenience
store located in Watford City, North Dakota.” Ante, at 805.
Not quite. Rather, two large trade groups initially fled
this action in 2021—a full decade after the Federal Reserve
Board finalized the debit-card-fee regulations at issue.
Those groups were the North Dakota Petroleum Marketers
Association, a “trade association that has existed since the
mid-1950s,” and the North Dakota Retail Association, an-
other trade group. App. to Pet. for Cert. 53. Corner Post,
which had only opened its doors in 2018, was not a party to
the trade groups' initial complaint. The Government moved
to dismiss the pleading, invoking § 2401(a)'s 6-year statute
of limitations. In response, the trade groups sought leave
Page Proof Pending Publication
to amend.
It was only then that Corner Post was added as a plaintiff.
And, importantly, other than the addition of Corner Post, the
trade groups' complaint remained practically identical to the
untimely one they had fled before. Other than a few
changes of phrasing and some newly available 2019 data, the
amended complaint alleged the same facts and sought the
same relief as the original pleading. It also included the exact
same legal claims—verbatim. The only material change to
the amended complaint was the addition of Corner Post.
Thus, even before I analyze the statute of limitations argu-
ments, one can see that this case is the poster child for the
type of manipulation that the majority now invites—new
groups being brought in (or created) just to do an end run
around the statute of limitations.1 To repeat: The claims in
1
If this case illustrates one type of gamesmanship, one does not need to
think hard to imagine other examples. A cash-only business that an-
nounces its intent to accept debit cards and thereby claiming injury from
the debit-card rule. New owners that buy out a shop, insisting that they
846 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS
Jackson, J., dissenting
Corner Post's lawsuit were not new or in any way distinct
(even in wording) from the pre-existing and untimely claims
of the trade organizations that had been around for decades.
This time, however, when the Government renewed its
motion to dismiss, the plaintiffs made the case all about Cor-
ner Post. The plaintiffs argued that, because Corner Post
had not yet formed as a company when the Board issued
Regulation II, it simply could not be subjected to a 6-year
limitations period that ran from when the challenged regula-
tion issued back in 2011. (One wonders how a company that
formed against the backdrop of a long-settled rule could pos-
sibly be entitled to complain, or claim injury, related to the
regulatory environment in which it willingly entered—but I
digress.) Rather than accepting that the untimely challenge
remained so, Corner Post demanded a personalized, plaintiff-
specifc limitations rule, giving an entity six years from when
it was frst affected by a Government action to fle a facial
challenge.
Page Proof Pending Publication
The District Court rejected Corner Post's argument, fol-
lowing the lead of every court of appeals that had ever ad-
dressed accrual of an APA facial challenge.2 It held that the
too are entitled to challenge the debit-card rule based on their status as
new entrants into the marketplace. It is telling that, even as the majority
says that the moment of the plaintiff's injury marks the start of the limita-
tions period for facial APA challenges, the majority fails to describe pre-
cisely when that injury occurs in this context.
2
The majority's opinion says we took this case to resolve a circuit split,
suggesting that the Sixth Circuit had reached the contrary conclusion. See
ante, at 806–807. It had not. In Herr v. United States Forest Serv., 803
F. 3d 809 (2015), the Sixth Circuit addressed accrual in the context of an
as-applied challenge after the Government had threatened enforcement.
There, the Circuit pegged accrual to the moment of the injury allegedly
caused by application of the rule to the plaintiff, see id., at 820, and did
not discuss whether that same accrual rule would apply to facial chal-
lenges. Since Herr, neither the Sixth Circuit nor any district court within
it has extended Herr's rule to facial challenges to fnal agency actions, and
at least one District Court has expressly rejected such an extension. See
Cite as: 603 U. S. 799 (2024) 847
Jackson, J., dissenting
addition of Corner Post as a plaintiff did not make a differ-
ence to the timeliness of the business groups' claims. The
Eighth Circuit affrmed, holding that “when plaintiffs bring
a facial challenge to a fnal agency action, the right of action
accrues, and the limitations period begins to run, upon publi-
cation of the regulation.” North Dakota Retail Assn. v.
Board of Governors of FRS, 55 F. 4th 634, 641 (2022).
II
But here we are. Three-quarters of a century after Con-
gress enacted the APA, a majority of this Court rejects the
consensus view that, for facial challenges to agency rules,
the statutory 6-year limitations period runs from the publi-
cation of the rule. Instead, it holds that an APA claim ac-
crues “when the plaintiff is injured by fnal agency action.”
Ante, at 804. The majority maintains that the text of
§ 2401(a) demands this result. But if that answer is so obvi-
ous, one wonders why no court proclaimed it until more than
Page Proof Pending Publication
75 years after all the statutory pieces were in place.
To explain how the majority got this ruling wrong, I fnd
it necessary to provide the right answer. Here, the relevant
statutory text is the catchall limitations provision for suits
brought against the United States: § 2401(a) of Title 28 of the
United States Code. All agree that there are two key terms
in that provision—“accrues” and “the right of action.” Ibid.
The majority misreads both. Contrary to the Court's rigid
reading, the word “accrues” lacks any fxed meaning. See
Crown Coat, 386 U. S., at 517. Instead, the meaning of ac-
crue for the purpose of a statute of limitations is determined
by the particular “right of action” at issue. For many kinds
of legal claims, accrual is plaintiff specifc because the claims
themselves are plaintiff specifc. But facial administrative-
law claims are not. This means that, in the administrative-
Linney's Pizza, LLC v. Board of Governors of FRS, 2023 WL 6050569,
*2–*4 (ED Ky., Sept. 15, 2023).
848 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS
Jackson, J., dissenting
law context, the limitations period begins not when a plain-
tiff is injured, but when a rule is fnalized.
A
When sovereign immunity has been waived, the Federal
Government is often sued, and Congress has enacted stat-
utes of limitations to ensure that those lawsuits are brought
in a timely fashion. Because such suits arise in different
contexts, Congress has enacted different statutes of limita-
tions for different types of suits.
Most statutes of limitations are context specifc. For ex-
ample, a tort claim against the United States typically must
be brought “within two years after such claim accrues.” 28
U. S. C. § 2401(b). By contrast, a party challenging certain
administrative orders must seek review “within 60 days
after [the order's] entry.” § 2344. Many more examples of
context-specifc limitations periods in the U. S. Code abound.
Page Proof Pending Publication
See, e. g., § 2501 (claims over which the United States Court
of Federal Claims has jurisdiction must be brought within
six years); 33 U. S. C. § 1369(b)(1) (challenges to certain
standards adopted by the Environmental Protection Agency
under the Clean Water Act must commence “within 120 days
from the date of . . . promulgation”).
The statute at issue here—28 U. S. C. § 2401(a)—supple-
ments those specific provisions. In doing so, § 2401(a)
serves a special purpose: to act as a catchall that imposes an
outer time limit on claims brought against the United States
when no other statute of limitations applies. Under
§ 2401(a), “every civil action commenced against the United
States shall be barred unless the complaint is fled within six
years after the right of action frst accrues.” This catchall
limitations statute has been applied in a range of contexts,
including APA claims (like this one), contract claims, see
Crown Coat, 386 U. S., at 510–511, and more, see, e. g.,
Natural Resources Defense Council v. Haaland, 102 F. 4th
1045, 1074 (CA9 2024) (claims under the Endangered Spe-
cies Act).
Cite as: 603 U. S. 799 (2024) 849
Jackson, J., dissenting
Consistent with the broad scope of its potential applica-
tion, § 2401(a) uses broad language. It starts the 6-year
clock when “the right of action frst accrues.” § 2401(a).
No more elaboration or specifcity is given. So, what does
the sparse text of § 2401(a) tell us?
To start, the statute tells us to look at when “the right of
action frst accrues.” (Emphasis added.) The word “frst”
directs us to start the clock at the earliest possible opportu-
nity once the claim accrues. From the text alone, then, we
know that this moment in time should happen sooner rather
than later. But when that moment occurs depends on the
meaning of both “the right of action” and “accrues.”
Next, the provision uses the unadorned phrase “the right
of action.” Because this statute is applicable to a broad
range of causes of action against the Government, the under-
lying statute (here the APA) provides “the right of action,”
not § 2401(a) itself. Put another way, the § 2401(a) catchall
applies to different causes of action, and those causes of ac-
Page Proof Pending Publication
tion establish different legal claims. Though the right of ac-
tion is not the same for an APA claim as it is for an Endan-
gered Species Act claim, § 2401(a)'s broad “right of action”
language applies to both of these claims, and more.
B
A proper understanding of the word “accrues” makes clear
that this term is far more fexible and context dependent
than the majority appreciates. Crucially, the Court has said
this very thing before—more than once, in fact. We have
long understood that it is simply not “possible to assign the
word `accrued' any defnite technical meaning which by itself
would enable us to say whether the statutory period begins
to run at one time or the other.” Reading Co. v. Koons, 271
U. S. 58, 61–62 (1926); see also Crown Coat, 386 U. S., at 517
(recognizing “the hazards inherent in attempting to defne
for all purposes when a `cause of action' frst `accrues' ”).
But, for some reason, that does not stop the majority from
trying here. Its opinion repeatedly asserts that the ordi-
850 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS
Jackson, J., dissenting
nary meaning of accrual is that claims accrue only when a
plaintiff can sue. See ante, at 809–813.3 But even the ma-
jority acknowledges that its preferred defnition of accrual is
not universal; it is, at most, “the `standard rule' ” that “ `can
be displaced.' ” Ante, at 811 (quoting Green v. Brennan, 578
U. S. 547, 554 (2016); emphasis added).
Far from imposing a one-size-fts-all defnition of the word
“accrue,” this Court has traditionally taken a claim-specifc
view: “[A] right accrues when it comes into existence.”
United States v. Lindsay, 346 U. S. 568, 569 (1954). For ex-
ample, in McMahon v. United States, 342 U. S. 25 (1951), we
held that, under the Suits in Admiralty Act, a claim accrued
when a seaman was injured, even though he could not yet
sue at that time. See id., at 27–28. In Crown Coat, we held
the opposite—a claim brought under 28 U. S. C. § 1346 did
not accrue at the time of injury, but rather at the moment of
fnal administrative action, because a plaintiff could not sue
until the agency action was fnal. See 386 U. S., at 513–514,
Page Proof Pending Publication
517–518. The point is not that these cases all point in one
direction or the other with respect to the meaning of accrue.
Instead, our cases illustrate what this Court has expressly
stated: The term “accrued” lacks “any defnite technical
meaning,” Reading, 271 U. S., at 61.
The majority nevertheless decrees today that accrual must
always be plaintiff specifc—i. e., that a claim cannot accrue
until “this particular plaintiff” can bring suit. Ante, at 817.
But that is not what § 2401(a) says. It does not say that the
clock starts when the plaintiffs right of action frst accrues;
rather, § 2401(a) starts the clock when “the right of action
3
The majority insists on a single defnition of “accrued,” but it cannot
keep its story straight as to what that defnition is. Its opinion offers
multiple formulations, stating that a claim accrues “when it comes into
existence,” “when the plaintiff has a complete and present cause of action,”
“when a suit may be maintained thereon,” and, also, “after the plaintiff
suffers the injury.” Ante, at 810–811 (internal quotation marks omitted).
These distinctions can make a difference.
Cite as: 603 U. S. 799 (2024) 851
Jackson, J., dissenting
frst accrues.” (Emphasis added.) In other words, the lim-
itations provision here focuses on the claim being brought
without regard for who brings it.
The dictionary defnitions on which the majority relies fur-
ther highlight this important observation. A claim accrues,
according to those defnitions, “ `when a suit may be main-
tained thereon' ” or upon the “ `coming or springing into
existence of a right to sue.' ” Ante, at 810 (emphasis added)
(frst quoting Black's Law Dictionary 37 (4th ed. 1951), then
quoting Ballentine's Law Dictionary 15 (2d ed. 1948)).
Again, and notably, these dictionaries speak of a right to sue,
not the plaintiff's right to sue. Like § 2401(a) itself, these
defnitions do not support the majority's assertion that ac-
crual is necessarily plaintiff specifc.
Of course, many of our cases do say that a claim accrues
when “ `the plaintiff has a complete and present cause of ac-
tion.' ” E. g., Gabelli v. SEC, 568 U. S. 442, 448 (2013); Wal-
Page Proof Pending Publication
lace v. Kato, 549 U. S. 384, 388 (2007); Graham County Soil &
Water Conservation Dist. v. United States ex rel. Wilson,
545 U. S. 409, 418 (2005); Bay Area Laundry and Dry Clean-
ing Pension Trust Fund v. Ferbar Corp. of Cal., 522 U. S.
192, 201 (1997). But those statements were made in the con-
text of particular cases, each of which dealt with plaintiff-
specifc causes of action. See, e. g., Gabelli, 568 U. S., at 446
(civil enforcement claim by the Securities and Exchange
Commission); Wallace, 549 U. S., at 388 (false imprisonment
and arrest claims); Graham County, 545 U. S., at 412 (retalia-
tion claim against an employer); Bay Area Laundry, 522
U. S., at 195 (claim alleging failure to make required pay-
ments to employee pension funds).
Here is what I mean by this. When a complaint brought
against a defendant asserts, “You falsely imprisoned me,” or
“You retaliated against me,” it is making a legal claim that
is specifc to the particular plaintiff. But, as discussed
below, it is not similarly plaintiff specifc to bring a claim
saying, for example, that a particular regulation is invalid
852 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS
Jackson, J., dissenting
because it “exceeds the Board's statutory authority,” or be-
cause the Government “failed to consider important aspects
of the problem,” as the complaint here alleges. App. to Pet.
for Cert. 80, 82. So, while accrual may sometimes—even
usually—be plaintiff specifc, that is just because underlying
legal claims are often plaintiff specifc. The precedents the
majority cites never say otherwise; i.e., they do not tell us
that accrual must always be plaintiff specifc.
The majority's other hard-and-fast distinction—between
statutes of limitations and statutes of repose—fares no bet-
ter. See ante, at 812–813. The majority sets up a dichot-
omy: Statutes of limitations are plaintiff-centric rules that
“ `require plaintiffs to pursue diligent prosecution of known
claims,' ” while statutes of repose emphasize fnality and are
tied to “ `the last culpable act or omission of the defendant.' ”
Ante, at 812 (quoting CTS Corp. v. Waldburger, 573 U. S. 1,
8 (2014)). The problem is that statutes of limitations and
statutes of repose, while different, are not nearly as different
Page Proof Pending Publication
as the majority imagines. It is true that statutes of repose
are considered to be “defendant-protective.” Ante, at 813.
But the same is true of statutes of limitations. “The very
purpose of a period of limitation is that there may be, at
some defnitely ascertainable period, an end to litigation.”
Reading, 271 U. S., at 65; see also Gabelli, 568 U. S., at 448
(repose is a “ `basic polic[y] of all limitations provisions' ”).
In fact, according to one of the dictionaries the majority cites,
“[s]tatutes of limitation are statutes of repose.” Black's Law
Dictionary, at 1077 (emphasis added). The difference is that
unlike statutes of repose, statutes of limitations have more
than one purpose: they bring fnality for defendants and pre-
vent plaintiffs from sleeping on their rights. Understanding
these dual functions sheds no light whatsoever on what to do
when those competing purposes point in different directions.4
4
Here, these purposes are at odds because repose favors starting the
clock at the moment of fnal agency action, whereas a plaintiff-specifc
limitations rule would be targeted at a plaintiff's injury to ensure plaintiffs
Cite as: 603 U. S. 799 (2024) 853
Jackson, J., dissenting
III
Because different claims accrue at different times, we
must look to the specifc types of claims that the plaintiffs
have brought and consider the context in which the limita-
tions period operates. “Cases under [one statute] do not
necessarily rule . . . claims” brought under another. Crown
Coat, 386 U. S., at 517. And our understanding of accrual
for limitations purposes has always been context specifc.
See, e. g., Wallace, 549 U. S., at 389 (relying on torts treatises
to explain the “distinctive rule” for commencement of limita-
tions period for false imprisonment suits); Franconia Asso-
ciates v. United States, 536 U. S. 129, 142–144 (2002) (citing
contracts treatises to explain that contract claims accrue at
the moment of breach); Merck & Co. v. Reynolds, 559 U. S.
633, 644–646 (2010) (applying fraud-specifc discovery rule to
determine accrual). In other words, to understand when
“the right of action” accrues under § 2401(a), we must under-
Page Proof Pending Publication
stand what the right of action is.
A
The right of action that is invoked in many administrative-
law cases, including this one, is a statutory claim that an
agency has violated certain legal requirements when it took
a certain action, such that the agency's action itself is invalid.
See, e. g., 5 U. S. C. § 706(2). And Congress has repeatedly
made clear, through various statutory enactments, that in
the administrative-law context, the statute of limitations for
fling a claim that seeks to invalidate the agency action runs
from the moment of fnal agency action.
Take the Administrative Orders Review Act (also known
as the Hobbs Act), for example. See 28 U. S. C. § 2342.
That statute is the exclusive mechanism for reviewing cer-
don't sleep on their rights. In the administrative-law context, one has to
choose between those objectives; no one rule can equally achieve both of
these ends.
854 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS
Jackson, J., dissenting
tain orders issued by over a half-dozen federal agencies.
The Act requires suits to be brought “within 60 days after
[the] entry” of any fnal agency order. § 2344. There are
many other similar statutes. In its brief, the Government
provided us with more than two dozen statutory provisions
where the limitations period starts running at the moment
of fnal agency action—whether that action is the publication
of a rule, or the issuance of an order, or something else. See
Brief for Respondent 15–17, and n. 4. And, as the Govern-
ment itself acknowledges, even that list is not comprehen-
sive. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 51 (“Candidly, we got to a page-
long footnote and stopped”).5
5
No kidding. On top of the dozens of examples that the Government pro-
vided, there are many, many others. See, e. g., 5 U. S. C. § 7703(b)(1)(A)
(“[A] petition to review a fnal order or fnal decision of the [Merit Systems
Protection] Board shall be fled . . . within 60 days after the Board issues
notice of the fnal order or decision of the Board”); 15 U. S. C. § 80b–13(a)
(“Any person or party aggrieved by an order issued by the [Securities and
Page Proof Pending Publication
Exchange] Commission under this subchapter may obtain a review of such
order . . . by fling . . . within sixty days after the entry of such order, a
written petition”); 30 U. S. C. § 1276(a)(2) (“Any [covered] order or decision
. . . shall be subject to judicial review on or before 30 days from the date
of such order or decision”); 38 U. S. C. § 7266(a) (“[T]o obtain review . . . of
a fnal decision of the Board of Veterans' Appeals, a person adversely af-
fected by such decision shall fle a notice of appeal with the Court within
120 days after the date on which notice of the decision is issued”); 42
U. S. C. § 405(g) (“Any individual, after any fnal decision of the Commis-
sioner of Social Security made after a hearing to which he was a party . . .
may obtain a review of such decision by a civil action commenced within
sixty days after the mailing to him of notice of such decision”);
§ 1395oo(f)(1) (“Providers shall have the right to obtain judicial review of
any fnal decision of the [Provider Reimbursement Review] Board . . . by
a civil action commenced within 60 days of the date on which notice of any
fnal decision by the Board . . . is received”); § 7607(b)(1) (“Any petition for
review under this subsection shall be fled within sixty days from the date
notice of such promulgation, approval, or action appears in the Federal
Register, except that if such petition is based solely on grounds arising
after such sixtieth day, then any petition for review under this subsection
shall be fled within sixty days after such grounds arise”); 49 U. S. C.
§ 1153(b)(1) (petitions seeking review of National Transportation Safety
Cite as: 603 U. S. 799 (2024) 855
Jackson, J., dissenting
Despite the dozens of statutes that start the limitations
period at the moment of fnal agency action, neither Corner
Post nor the majority identifes a single statute in the
administrative-law context—either now or before 1948—that
takes any other approach. This tells us exactly the message
that Congress might have expected courts to infer when in-
terpreting § 2401(a): For administrative-law actions, a claim
accrues at the moment of fnal agency action.
The Court says we must ignore these other statutes
because they post-date Congress's 1948 enactment of
§ 2401(a). See ante, at 815–817. The majority's reasoning is
doubly wrong. First, it is wrong on the facts. Even before
1948, Congress consistently started limitations periods in the
administrative-law context at the moment of the last agency
action.6 Then, as now, Congress decided that the deadline
for reviewing agency actions should be pegged to the action
Board orders that relate to aviation matters “must be fled not later than
Page
60 days after Proof
6
Pending Publication
the order is issued”).
See, e. g., 42 Stat. 162 (1921) (codifed at 7 U. S. C. § 194(a)) (meatpackers
must appeal agency orders within 30 days after service of order); 48 Stat.
1093 (1934) (codifed as amended at 47 U. S. C. § 402(c)) (Federal Communi-
cations Commission orders must be challenged in court “within twenty
days after the decision complained of is effective”); 49 Stat. 860 (1935)
(codifed at 16 U. S. C. § 825l(b)) (orders issued by the Federal Power Com-
mission pursuant to the Public Utility Act of 1935 must be challenged in
court “within sixty days after the order of the Commission”); 49 Stat. 980
(1935) (codifed at 27 U. S. C. § 204(h)) (orders related to alcohol permits
must be challenged “within sixty days after the entry of such order”); 52
Stat. 112 (1938) (codifed at 15 U. S. C. § 45) (Federal Trade Commission
cease-and-desist orders must be challenged “within sixty days from the
date of the service of such order”); 52 Stat. 831 (1938) (codifed at 15
U. S. C. § 717r(b)) (orders issued by the Federal Power Commission pursu-
ant to the Natural Gas Act must be challenged in court “within sixty days
after the order of the Commission”); 52 Stat. 1053 (1938) (codifed at 21
U. S. C. § 355(h)) (orders related to new drug applications must be chal-
lenged in court “within sixty days after the entry of such order”); 54 Stat.
501 (1940) (orders apportioning costs for certain bridge projects must be
challenged in court “within three months after the date such order is
issued”).
856 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS
Jackson, J., dissenting
under review. Second, the majority misses the broader
point: Whenever Congress imposes a deadline to challenge
an agency decision, the limitations period always starts at
the moment of the last agency action. We should pay atten-
tion to the uniformly expressed judgment of Congress, and
read § 2401(a) accordingly.
Somehow, the majority draws the opposite conclusion. In
its view, either Congress's consistently expressed intention
is irrelevant to what § 2401(a) means, or Congress's failure
to explicitly express that intention in the text of § 2401(a)
indicates that Congress decided otherwise in this particular
statute (after all, Congress could have expressly pegged
accrual to fnal agency action in § 2401(a) but did not do
so). See ante, at 811–813.7 But mechanically drawing
these sorts of negative inferences when interpreting statutes
can be risky. “Context counts, and it is sometimes diffcult
to read much into the absence of a word that is present else-
where in a statute.” Bartenwerfer v. Buckley, 598 U. S. 69,
Page Proof Pending Publication
78 (2023).
The majority's approach overlooks relevant context in all
sorts of ways, including the fact that § 2401(a) is a catchall
provision that applies to a variety of actions—that is, the
language we are interpreting here does not apply only in
the administrative-law context. It applies to every suit
against the United States not covered by another statute
of limitations. One cannot expect for Congress to have ex-
plicitly stated that accrual in § 2401(a) starts at the point of
fnal agency action when § 2401(a) is a residual provision that
also applies to claims that do not involve agency action at
all.8
7
The majority criticizes my review of congressional action in this area,
but fails to adequately explore the record itself. Ante, at 815–817. The
majority's conclusion that the accrual rule is plaintiff specifc for APA
claims is no more than ipse dixit.
8
Contra the majority, see ante, at 817, the fact that Congress could have
opted to enact a specifc statutory review provision for APA claims says
nothing about how we should apply the catchall review provision here.
Cite as: 603 U. S. 799 (2024) 857
Jackson, J., dissenting
Frankly, it was also entirely unnecessary for Congress
to be explicit regarding its intentions. Again, in the
administrative-law context, the consistent rule is not the
plaintiff-specifc accrual rule that exists in other contexts
(e. g., torts), but the rule that applies every time Congress
has ever mentioned a limitations period with respect to a
suit against an agency: The claim accrues at the moment of
fnal agency action. So it is no wonder that Congress did
not expressly mention this in the text of § 2401(a)—it did
not have to, for those who have a basic understanding of
its statutes.
What is more, the standard accrual rule for the
administrative-law context makes perfect sense. The APA
itself focuses on the agency's action, not on the plaintiff. Sec-
tion 704 subjects certain “agency action[s]” to judicial review.
Section 706 lays out the scope of judicial review. As relevant
here, courts shall “hold unlawful and set aside agency action”
that is “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or other-
Page Proof Pending Publication
wise not in accordance with law.” 5 U. S. C. § 706(2)(A).
Other subsections of § 706 likewise focus exclusively on what
the agency did. Did the agency act “in excess of statutory
jurisdiction”? § 706(2)(C). Did the agency act “without ob-
servance of procedure required by law”? § 706(2)(D).
Section 702 is not to the contrary. The majority suggests
otherwise, characterizing § 702 as “equip[ping] injured parties
with a cause of action.” Ante, at 808. This is a misleading
characterization. Section 702 restricts who may challenge
agency action: only those “person[s] suffering legal wrong
because of agency action, or adversely affected or aggrieved
by agency action.” It is simply a limitation on who can sue.
As such, it says nothing about the cause of action that such
a person might bring, nor does it establish that an injury is
an element of the claim, as the majority mistakenly sug-
gests.9 And that is for good reason, since, in administrative
9
The majority puts too much stock in the fact that § 702 references an
injury: That reference actually does no more than highlight the distinction
between what constitutes a claim and who can bring that claim. See ante,
858 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS
Jackson, J., dissenting
actions, the claim itself remains focused on the agency. See
Crown Coat, 386 U. S., at 513 (“The focus of the court action
is the validity of the administrative decision”).
The way that courts review agency actions also reinforces
this basic observation. Courts do not look at what happened
to the plaintiff or what happened after the rulemaking—they
look only at the rule and the rulemaking process itself. See
SEC v. Chenery Corp., 318 U. S. 80, 95 (1943). “[T]he focal
point for judicial review should be the administrative record
already in existence, not some new record made initially in
the reviewing court.” Camp v. Pitts, 411 U. S. 138, 142
(1973) (per curiam). Anything that happened after the
rule's publication (including, perhaps, some injury to a regu-
lated party) does not matter to an APA claim. So, the avail-
able claims, causes of action, and evidence are the same re-
gardless of who brings the challenge or when they bring it.
Again, the complaint in this case proves the point. Before
Corner Post was added as a plaintiff, the complaint alleged
Page Proof Pending Publication
that (1) Regulation II is contrary to law and exceeds the
Board's statutory authority, and (2) Regulation II is arbi-
trary and capricious. See Complaint in North Dakota Re-
at 807–808, and n. 1. This type of distinction is commonplace in many
areas of our jurisprudence. Take, for example, the constitutional standing
doctrine, which limits eligible plaintiffs to those who have suffered an
injury in fact that is both traceable to the defendant's conduct and redress-
able in court. See FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, 602 U. S.
367, 380–385 (2024). Whether a particular plaintiff has standing to sue
says nothing about the elements of the claim itself. See Haaland v.
Brackeen, 599 U. S. 255, 291 (2023) (“We do not reach the merits of these
claims because no party before the Court has standing to raise them”).
The distinction between what a claim is and who can bring it applies with
full force here. Section 702 codifes an injury requirement for bringing
APA claims. Whether a particular plaintiff was “adversely affected or
aggrieved by agency action within the meaning of a relevant statute”
under § 702 is a threshold inquiry about whether she is an appropriate
plaintiff; it has no bearing on whether the agency did, in fact, act in a
manner that was “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or other-
wise not in accordance with law,” § 706(2)(A).
Cite as: 603 U. S. 799 (2024) 859
Jackson, J., dissenting
tail Assn. v. Board of Governors of FRS, No. 1:21–cv–00095
(D ND), ECF Doc. 1, pp. 32–36. After Corner Post was
added as a plaintiff, the complaint made exactly those same
two legal claims. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 79–84. Before
Corner Post was added, the contrary-to-law claim said that
the Board considered impermissible costs and capped inter-
change fees in a way that was not proportional to the specifc
costs of each transaction. See ECF Doc. 1, at 32–34. After
Corner Post was added, the contrary-to-law claim said the
exact same thing. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 79–81. Before
the addition of Corner Post, the arbitrary-and-capricious
claim said that the Board failed to consider certain congres-
sional instructions, relied on factors that Congress did not
intend for it to consider, and ran counter to evidence before
the Board. See ECF Doc. 1, at 34–36. Those claims, too,
were unchanged after the addition of Corner Post. See
App. to Pet. for Cert. 82–84.
From the pleadings fled in this case, three observations
Page Proof Pending Publication
stand out. First, these APA claims, like all APA claims, are
about what the agency itself did, so the logical point to start
the clock is the moment the agency acted. Second, the
claims that Corner Post brings are not specifc to it—they
are identical to the untimely claims the coplaintiff trade
groups brought before. And, fnally, although the majority
puts procedural challenges to the side—asserting that its
holding does not extend to those, see ante, at 821, n. 8—
the claims in this case are procedural, so the majority's line-
drawing exercise is meaningless.
B
On the matter of congressional intent, the consistent ac-
crual rule in the administrative-law context (the limitations
period starts running at the time of the fnal agency action)
is patently superior to the majority's reading of § 2401(a).
Congress enacts statutes of limitations to achieve basic pol-
icy goals: “repose, elimination of stale claims, and certainty
860 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS
Jackson, J., dissenting
about a plaintiff's opportunity for recovery and a defendant's
potential liabilities.” Rotella v. Wood, 528 U. S. 549, 555
(2000); see also Gabelli, 568 U. S., at 448. For APA claims,
where rulemakings apply to the public writ large, repose and
certainty would never exist if any and every newly formed
entity can challenge every agency regulation in existence.
Stated simply, the majority has adopted an implausible read-
ing of § 2401(a), because, as I explain below, a plaintiff-
specifc accrual rule operating in this context undermines
each of the central goals of all limitations provisions.
First, repose. This principle means that, at some point,
litigation must end. Under the majority's reading of the
statute, it never will. Instead of putting a stop to things
after six years, § 2401(a) now does nothing to prevent agency
rules from being forever subjected to legal challenge by
newly formed entities (or, as this case illustrates, by old enti-
ties that can fnd or create new entities to graft onto their
complaint).10
Page Proof Pending Publication
Second, elimination of stale claims. The majority forces
courts and agencies to parse cold administrative records.
Long after the action in question, courts may be ill equipped
to review decades-old administrative explanations.
Last, certainty. As I explain in Part IV, infra, the major-
ity's approach creates uncertainty for the Government and
every entity that relies on the Government to function.
Agency rulemaking serves important “notice and predict-
ability purposes.” Talk America, Inc. v. Michigan Bell
Telephone Co., 564 U. S. 50, 69 (2011) (Scalia, J., concurring).
When an administrative agency changes its own rules, it fol-
lows specifc, established processes, so parties have some
predictability about how the rules of the road might change.
10
The fact that “courts entertaining later challenges often will be able
to rely on binding Supreme Court or circuit precedent,” ante, at 824, is
irrelevant. What we are deciding now is how the statute of limitations
should be interpreted, and more specifcally, whether it makes sense to
interpret it in a way that is inconsistent with the purpose of such statutes.
Cite as: 603 U. S. 799 (2024) 861
Jackson, J., dissenting
But when every rule on the books can perpetually be chal-
lenged by any new plaintiff, and is thus subject to limitless
ad hoc amendment, no policy determination can ever be put
to rest, and certainty about the rules that govern will for-
ever remain elusive.
IV
Today's ruling is not only baseless. It is also extraordi-
narily consequential. In one fell swoop, the Court has effec-
tively eliminated any limitations period for APA lawsuits,
despite Congress's unmistakable policy determination to cut
off such suits within six years of the fnal agency action.
The Court has decided that the clock starts for limitations
purposes whenever a new regulated entity is created. This
means that, from this day forward, administrative agencies
can be sued in perpetuity over every fnal decision they
make.
The majority's ruling makes legal challenges to decades-
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old agency decisions fair game, even though courts of appeals
had previously applied § 2401(a) to fnd untimely a range of
belated APA challenges. For example, a lower court re-
jected an APA challenge to the Food and Drug Administra-
tion's approval of the abortion medication mifepristone that
was brought more than two decades after the relevant
agency action. See Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v.
FDA, 78 F. 4th 210, 242 (CA5 2023). A 2008 APA challenge
to a 1969 ruling by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms
and Explosives implementing the Gun Control Act was also
bounced on statute of limitations grounds. See Hire Order
Ltd. v. Marianos, 698 F. 3d 168, 170 (CA4 2012). Other un-
questionably tardy APA suits have been dismissed on similar
grounds too.11
11
See, e. g., Alabama v. PCI Gaming Auth., 801 F. 3d 1278, 1292 (CA11
2015) (2013 challenge to Secretary of Interior's 1984, 1992, and 1995 deci-
sions to take certain land into trust for tribes); Wong v. Doar, 571 F. 3d
247, 263 (CA2 2009) (2007 challenge to 1980 Medicaid regulation); Dunn-
McCampbell Royalty Interest, Inc. v. National Park Serv., 112 F. 3d 1283,
862 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS
Jackson, J., dissenting
No more. After today, even the most well-settled agency
regulations can be placed on the chopping block. And
please take note: The fallout will not stop with new chal-
lenges to old rules involving the most contentious issues of
today. Any established government regulation about any
issue—say, workplace safety, toxic waste, or consumer
protection—can now be attacked by any new regulated en-
tity within six years of the entity's formation. A brand new
entity could pop up and challenge a regulation that is decades
old; perhaps even one that is as old as the APA itself. No
matter how entrenched, heavily relied upon, or central to the
functioning of our society a rule is, the majority has an-
nounced open season.
Still, in issuing its ruling in this case, the Court seems
oddly oblivious to the most foreseeable consequence of the
accrual rule it is adopting: Giving every new entity in a regu-
lated industry its own personal statute of limitations to chal-
lenge longstanding regulations affects our Nation's economy.
Page Proof Pending Publication
Why? Because administrative agencies establish the base-
line rules around which businesses and individuals order
their lives. When an agency publishes a fnal rule, and the
period for challenging that rule passes, people in that indus-
try understand that the agency's policy choice is the law and
act accordingly. They make investments because of it.
They change their practices because of it. They enter con-
tracts in light of it. They may not like the rule, but they
live and work with it, because that is what the Rule of Law
requires. It is profoundly destabilizing—and also acutely
unfair—to permit newcomers to bring legal challenges that
can overturn settled regulations long after the rest of the
competitive marketplace has adapted itself to the regula-
tory environment.
1286–1287 (CA5 1997) (1994 challenge to 1979 National Park Service regu-
lations); Shiny Rock Mining Corp. v. United States, 906 F. 2d 1362, 1365–
1366 (CA9 1990) (1984 challenges to 1964 and 1965 land management
orders).
Cite as: 603 U. S. 799 (2024) 863
Jackson, J., dissenting
Moreover, as I have explained, the Court's ruling in this
case allows for every new entity to challenge any and every
rule that an agency has ever adopted. It is extraordinarily
presumptuous that an entity formed in full view of an
agency's rules, by founders who can choose to enter the in-
dustry or not, can demand that well-established rules of en-
gagement be revisited. But even setting aside those com-
monsense fairness concerns, the constant churn of potential
attacks on an agency's rules by new entrants can harm all
entities in a regulated industry. At any time, anyone can
come along and potentially cause every entity to have to ad-
just its whole operations manual, since any rule (no matter
how well settled) might be subject to alteration. Indeed,
the obvious need for stability in the rules that govern an
industry is precisely why a defned period for challenging
the rules was needed at all.
Knowledgeable amici have explained that the majority's
Page Proof Pending Publication
approach to accrual of the statute of limitations for APA
claims undermines the “[s]tability, predictability, and consist-
ency [that] enable[s] small businesses to survive and thrive.”
Brief for Small Business Associations as Amici Curiae 5.
And there is no question that long-term uncertainty “hinders
the ability of businesses to plan effectively.” Id., at 9. The
majority's accrual rule unnecessarily creates “frequent, in-
consistent, judicially-driven policy changes that do not in-
volve the sort of careful balancing envisioned in the normal
process of regulatory change.” Id., at 12. And, again, one
might think that preventing such chaos is precisely why Con-
gress enacted a statute of limitations in the frst place.
Seeking to minimize the fully foreseeable and potentially
devastating impact of its ruling, the majority maintains that
there is nothing to see here, because not every lawsuit brought
by a new industry upstart will win, and, at any rate, many
agency regulations are already subject to challenge. See
ante, at 823–824. But this myopic rationalization overlooks
other signifcant changes that this Court has wrought this
864 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS
Jackson, J., dissenting
Term with respect to the longstanding rules governing re-
view of agency actions. The discerning reader will know
that the Court has handed down other decisions this Term
that likewise invite and enable a wave of regulatory chal-
lenges—decisions that carry with them the possibility that
well-established agency rules will be upended in ways that
were previously unimaginable. Doctrines that were once
settled are now unsettled, and claims that lacked merit a
year ago are suddenly up for grabs.
In Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, 603 U. S. 369
(2024), for example, the Court has reneged on a blackletter
rule of administrative law that had been foundational for the
last four decades. Id., at 412–413. Under that prior inter-
pretive doctrine, courts deferred to agency interpretations
of ambiguous statutes that Congress authorized the agency
to administer. Now, every legal claim conceived of in those
last four decades—and before—can possibly be brought be-
fore courts newly unleashed from the constraints of any such
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deference. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 74 (Assistant to the Solicitor
General explaining that this result “would magnify the effect
of ” overruling Chevron).
Put differently, a fxed statute of limitations, running from
the agency's action, was one barrier to the chaotic upending
of settled agency rules; the requirement that deference be
given to an agency's reasonable interpretations concerning
its statutory authority to issue rules was another. The
Court has now eliminated both. Any new objection to any
old rule must be entertained and determined de novo by
judges who can now apply their own unfettered judgment as
to whether the rule should be voided.
* * *
At the end of a momentous Term, this much is clear: The
tsunami of lawsuits against agencies that the Court's hold-
ings in this case and Loper Bright have authorized has the
potential to devastate the functioning of the Federal Govern-
Cite as: 603 U. S. 799 (2024) 865
Jackson, J., dissenting
ment. Even more to the present point, that result simply
cannot be what Congress intended when it enacted legisla-
tion that stood up and funded federal agencies and vested
them with authority to set the ground rules for the individu-
als and entities that participate in our economy and our soci-
ety. It is utterly inconceivable that § 2401(a)'s statute of
limitations was meant to permit fresh attacks on settled reg-
ulations from all new comers forever. Yet, that is what the
majority holds today.
But Congress still has a chance to address this absurdity
and forestall the coming chaos. It can opt to correct this
Court's mistake by clarifying that the statutes it enacts are
designed to facilitate the functioning of agencies, not to hob-
ble them. In particular, Congress can amend § 2401(a), or
enact a specifc review provision for APA claims, to state
explicitly what any such rule must mean if it is to operate
as a limitations period in this context: Regulated entities
have six years from the date of the agency action to bring a
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lawsuit seeking to have it changed or invalidated; after that,
facial challenges must end. By doing this, Congress can
make clear that lawsuits bringing facial claims against agen-
cies are not personal attack vehicles for new entities created
just for that purpose. So, while the Court has made a mess
of this pivotal statute, and the consequences are profound,
“the ball is in Congress' court.” Ledbetter v. Goodyear
Tire & Rubber Co., 550 U. S. 618, 661 (2007) (Ginsburg, J.,
dissenting).
Reporter’s Note
The attached opinion has been revised to refect the usual publication
and citation style of the United States Reports. The revised pagination
makes available the offcial United States Reports citation in advance of
publication. The syllabus has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions
for the convenience of the reader and constitutes no part of the opinion of
Page Proof Pending Publication
the Court. A list of counsel who argued or fled briefs in this case, and
who were members of the bar of this Court at the time this case was
argued, has been inserted following the syllabus. Other revisions may
include adjustments to formatting, captions, citation form, and any errant
punctuation. The following additional edits were made:
p. 803, line 30: the second “in which” is deleted
p. 810, line 5: “commenced” is inserted after “action”
p. 865, line 5: “the” is deleted