CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM
No. 22–1008
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
July 1, 2024
Argued February 20, 2024
Syllabus
NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued. The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.
CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM
Since it opened for business in 2018, petitioner Corner Post, like most merchants, has accepted debit cards as a form
In 2021, Corner Post joined a suit brought against the Board under 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
Held: An APA claim does not accrue for purposes of
(a) The APA grants Corner Post a cause of action subject to certain conditions, see
To determine whether Corner Post‘s APA claim is timely, the Court must interpret
(b) Congress enacted
“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 definition has appeared “in dictionaries from the 19th century up until today,” which explain that a cause of action accrues when a suit may be maintained thereon. 568 U. S., at 448. Thus, a cause of action does not become complete and present—it does not accrue—“until the plaintiff can file suit and obtain relief.” Bay Area Laundry and Dry CleaningPension Trust Fund v. Ferbar Corp. of Cal., 522 U. S. 192, 201. Contemporaneous legal dictionaries explained that a claim does not “accrue” as soon as the defendant acts, but only after the plaintiff suffers the injury required to press her claim in court.
The Court‘s precedent treats this definition of accrual as the “standard rule for limitations periods,” Green, 578 U. S., at 554, and the Court has “repeatedly recognized that Congress legislates against” this standard rule, Graham County Soil & Water Conservation Dist. v. United 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 file 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 defendant‘s action instead of the plaintiff‘s injury.
The Board would have this Court interpret
(c) The Board‘s arguments to the contrary lack merit. Pp. 10–23.
(1) The Board points to the many specific statutory review provisions that start the clock at finality, contending that such statutes reflect a standard administrative-law practice of starting the limitations period when “any proper plaintiff” can challenge the final agency action. But unlike the specific review provisions that the Board cites,
While the Board argues that
Importing the Board‘s special administrative-law rule into
(2) The Board maintains that
(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 beneficiaries on whose behalf any administrator would seek relief—the “real parties in interest“—had
(4) Finally, the Board raises policy concerns. It emphasizes that agencies and regulated parties need the finality of a 6-year cutoff, and that successful facial challenges filed 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
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. KAVANAUGH, J., filed a concurring opinion. JACKSON, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which SOTOMAYOR, J., and KAGAN, J., joined.
CORNER POST, INC., PETITIONER v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM
No. 22–1008
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
July 1, 2024
JUSTICE BARRETT delivered the opinion of the Court.
The default statute of limitations for suits against the United States requires “the complaint [to be] filed within six years after the right of action first accrues.”
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 “interchange 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 thousands of dollars in interchange fees—which has meant higher prices for its customers.
Interchange fees have long been a sore point for merchants. For many years, payment networks had free rein over the fee amount—and because they used the promise of per-transaction profit to compete for the banks’ business, they had significant incentive to raise the fees. Merchants—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 Protection Act of 2010 tasks the Federal Reserve Board with setting “standards for assessing whether the amount of any interchange transaction fee . . . is reasonable and proportional to the cost incurred by the issuer with respect to the transaction.” 124 Stat. 2068,
Four months later, a group of retail-industry trade associations and individual retailers sued the Board, arguing that 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 statute,” 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 litigation. 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 unlawful because it allows payment networks to charge higher fees than the statute permits. See
The District Court dismissed the suit as barred by
The Eighth Circuit‘s decision deepened a circuit split over when
II
Three statutory provisions control our analysis:
Section 702 authorizes persons injured by agency action to obtain judicial review by suing the United States or one of its agencies, officers, 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 review thereof.”
While
The applicable statute of limitations,
The Board contends that an APA claim “accrues” when agency action is “final” for purposes of
III
Congress enacted
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 plaintiff 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 definition has appeared “in dictionaries from the 19th century up until today.” Gabelli, 568 U. S., at 448. Legal dictionaries in the 1940s and 1950s uniformly explained that a cause of action ” ‘accrues’ when a suit may be maintained thereon.” Black‘s Law Dictionary 37 (4th ed. 1951) (Black‘s); see also, e.g., Ballentine‘s Law Dictionary 15–16 (2d ed. 1948) (Ballentine‘s) (“[A]ccrual of cause of action” defined 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 present’ for limitations purposes“—it does not accrue—“until the plaintiff can file 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.” Ballentine‘s 16 (emphasis added). Thus, when Congress used the phrase “right of action first accrues” in
Our precedent treats this definition of accrual as the “standard rule for limitations periods.” Green, 578 U. S., at 554. “We have repeatedly recognized that Congress legislates against the ‘standard rule that the limitations period commences when the plaintiff has a complete and present cause of action.‘” Graham County Soil & Water Conservation 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., concurring in judgment) (quoting 1 H. Wood, Limitation of Actions §122a, p. 684 (rev. 4th ed. 1916) (Wood)). Conversely, we have “reject[ed]” the possibility that a “limitations period commences at a time when the [plaintiff] could not yet file suit” as “inconsistent with basic limitations principles.” Bay Area Laundry, 522 U. S., at 200.
This traditional rule constitutes a strong background presumption. While the “standard rule can be displaced such that the limitations period begins to run before a plaintiff can file a suit,” we “‘will not infer such an odd result in the absence of any such indication’ in the text
There is good reason to conclude that Congress codified the traditional accrual rule in
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, 7–8 (2014) (quoting Black‘s 1546 (9th ed. 2009)). That describes
* * *
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. Because injury, not just
IV
The Board concedes that some claims accrue for purposes of
A
The Board puts the most weight on the many specific statutory review provisions that start the clock at finality. See also post, at 12–15 (JACKSON, J., dissenting). The Hobbs Act, for example, requires persons aggrieved by certain final orders and regulations of the Federal Communications Commission, Secretary of Agriculture, and Secretary of Transportation, among others, to petition for review “within 60 days after [the] entry” of the final agency action.
1
This argument hits the immutable obstacle of
In arguing to the contrary, post, at 12–16, the dissent ignores the textual differences between
Undeterred, the dissent insists that by the time
In any event, the dissent misunderstands the history. See post, at 14, and n. 6. (Notably, the Board itself does not make this argumеnt.) While the Emergency Price Control Act of 1942 preceded the APA (1946) and
Thus, even if the “intention” Congress “expressed” in textually distinct statutes could overcome
1948—not to mention in the Little Tucker Act—the dissent cannot “displace” this “standard
2
The standard accrual rule that
The dissent disputes
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 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
absence of any such indication in the text of the limitations period.” Ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted).
B
Turning to
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 6–9 (JACKSON, J., dissenting). Again, the Board comes up empty.
In Koons, we interpreted the statute of limitations under the
The Board’s characterization of Koons is incomplete. Koons explained that the administrator “acts only for the benefit of persons specifically designated in the statute,” and at the “time of death there are identified persons for whose benefit the liability exists and who can start the machinery of the law in motion to enforce it, by applying for the appointment of an administrator.” Id., at 62. If a beneficiary sued in her individual capacity immediately after the employee’s death, she could amend her suit to describe herself as “executor or administrator of the
Nor does Crown Coat. That case concerned a contract dispute in which a Government contractor sought an equitable adjustment to the payment it received. 386 U. S., at 507. The contract required the contractor to present its claim to the contracting officer and Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals; its claim was “not subject to adjudication in the courts” until it was denied by the Board. Id., at 511. The question presented was whether
We held that the right of action first accrued when the Board dеnied 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 explained that
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 define for all purposes when a ‘cause of action’ first ‘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 different meanings in different contexts—and in the administrative-law context, a right of action “accrues” when a regulation is final, full stop. See also post, at 6 (JACKSON, J., dissenting) (citing Crown Coat for the proposition that “the word ‘accrues’ lacks any fixed 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 first accrues” in a single statute should mean different things in different contexts—which is how the Board and the dissent would have us interpret
Even if Crown Coat’s dicta supported sapping “accrues” of any “fixed meaning,” post, at 6 (JACKSON, J., dissenting), this approach has been contravened by the weight of subse-quent precedent. Our limitations cases from the last several decades have instead emphasized the strength of the traditional, plaintiff-centric accrual rule and demanded that departures be justified by the statutory “text of the limitations period.” Green, 578 U. S., at 554; see also, e.g., Graham County, 545 U. S., at 418–419 (explaining that in Reiter v. Cooper, 507 U. S. 258, 267 (1993), the Court “declin[ed] to countenance the ‘odd result’ that a federal cause of action and statute of limitations 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 finality of a 6-year cutoff. After that point, facial challenges impose significant 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 18–24 (JACKSON, J., dissenting).
“[P]leas of administrative inconvenience . . . never ‘justify departing from the statute’s clear text.’ ” Niz-Chavez v. Garland, 593 U. S. 155, 169 (2021) (quoting Pereira v. Sessions, 585 U. S 198, 217 (2018)). Congress could have chosen different language in
That is enough to dispatch the Board’s policy arguments, but we add that its concerns are overstated. Put aside facial challenges like Corner Post’s. Regulated parties “may always assail a regulation as exceeding the agency’s statutory 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 finality that simply does not exist. See post, at 21–23.
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 significant resources to address each new suit. Given that major regulations are typically challenged immediately, courts entertaining later challenges 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 challengе.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
The dissent also raises a host of policy arguments masquerading as “matter[s] of congressional intent.” post, at 18–24. And it warns that today’s opinion will “devastate the functioning of the Federal Government.” post, at 23. This claim is baffling—indeed, bizarre—in a case about a statute of limitations. The Solicitor General, whose mandate is to protect the interests of the Federal Government, comes nowhere close to suggesting that a plaintiff-centric interpretation of
* * *
An APA claim does not accrue for purposes of
It is so ordered.
CORNER POST, INC., PETITIONER v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM
No. 22–1008
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
[July 1, 2024]
Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024)
KAVANAUGH, J., concurring
JUSTICE KAVANAUGH, concurring.
I agree with the Court that a claim under the Administrative 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 presumption’ that anyone injured by agency action should have access to judicial review.” Ante, at 21 (quoting Abbott Laboratories 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 fеes 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.
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 plaintiff. 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 first place. Instead, the unregulated plaintiff can obtain meaningful relief only if the APA authorizes vacatur of the agency rule, thereby remedying the adverse downstream effects 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.
Recently, the Government has advanced a far-reaching argument 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 authorization to “set aside” agency
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 unregulated 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 Government’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 assessing whether interchange fees are “reasonable and proportional to the cost incurred” in processing a debit-card transaction.
Corner Post is not subject to the fee rule. Corner Post does not charge interchange fees to its customers, and Corner 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 benefit 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 “final agency action” to obtain judicial review in federal district court.
Corner Post filed 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 capricious 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 cannot be enforced against Corner Post in the first place. Nor could Corner Post secure relief through an injunction against banks; the APA does not authorize suits against private parties.
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 administrative 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.
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.
Longstanding precedent reinforces the text. Over the decades, this Court has affirmed сountless decisions that vacated agency actions, including agency rules. See, e.g., Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of Univ. of Cal., 591 U. S. 1, 36, and n. 7 (2020); Whitman v. American Trucking Assns., Inc., 531 U. S. 457, 486 (2001); Board of Governors, 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 enjoined enforcement of the rules against the specific 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 vacated”). 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 are vacated—not that their application to the individual petitioners is proscribed.” Harmon v. Thornburgh, 878 F. 2d 484, 495, n. 21 (CADC 1989).
Importantly, as Corner Post’s lawsuit shows, the availability 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 unregulated but adversely affected parties, a plaintiff can obtain relief only through vacatur of the adverse agency action. Prohibiting courts from vacating agency actions would essentially 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
Vacatur is therefore essential to fulfill the “basic presumption 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 contravene the strong Abbott Laboratories presumption by insulating many agency rules from meaningful judicial review (which perhaps is the Government’s motivation for its recent campaign).
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., 522 U. S. 479, 484–485 (1998), several banks challenged the decision of a federal agency to approve a series of amendments to the charter of a federal credit union, a competitor of the banks. 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 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.
Those competitor suits are ubiquitous in administrative law. Some plaintiffs have challenged the favorable classification 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 competition
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 Manufacturers 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 vehicles. 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 first place. Sеe 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 downstream effects of the agency’s rescission of the safety standards only if the insurers could obtain vacatur of that rescission. 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 eliminate the common form of environmental litigation where private 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 property 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). In those cases, the plaintiff generally cannot bring an APA suit against the developer, who is usually a private party. See
Some of those suits proceed under the APA; others proceed under federal statutory review provisions that similarly authorize courts to “set aside” agency action. See, e.g.,
Many APA suits similarly challenge federal emissions limits or efficiency standards for cars, trucks, and other sources of pollution. See, e.g., American Public Gas Assn. v. Department 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, 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 resсind or loosen federal workplace safety standards. 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.,
The examples of standard agency litigation that depend on the availability of vacatur are seemingly endless. Vacatur was essential when American workers challenged a Department of Labor rule that unlawfully allowed employers to access 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 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 straightforward and long-accepted conclusion that the phrase “set aside” in the APA authorizes
To support its new position, the Government has offered an array of arguments.
First, the Government says that vacatur of a federal rule is akin to a nationwide injunction—in other words, an injunction that prohibits the Government from enforcing a law against anyone, not just the parties in a specific case. The Government has contended that equitable relief is ordinarily limited to the parties in a specific case. Therefore, nаtionwide injunctions would be permissible only if Congress authorized 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.
Second, the Government argues that the remedies available in APA suits are not governed by
To support its novel reliance on
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 statutes authorized courts to “set aside” specific kinds of agency actions, such as orders by the Interstate Commerce Commission. See n. 2, supra. This Court correctly understood those statutes to authorize vacatur. For example, in litigation 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). Similar examples abound. See, e.g., Sohoni, The Past and Future of Universal Vacatur, 133 Yale L. J., at 2329-2335 (collecting cases). By similarly authorizing courts to “set aside” agency actions, the APA likewise authorized vacatur.
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 Laboratories v. Gardner, 387 U.S. 136, which significantly expanded the opportunities for facial, pre-enforcement review of agency rules. Id., at 139-141. Indeed, it was not until Abbott 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 unregulated parties. Not surprisingly, the Government‘s current 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 orders) 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 consequences that occur when a federal district court wrongly vacates a
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 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 Government also said that “it‘s possible that the only way to provide” 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 Government also revealed the weakness of its position. The meaning of “set aside” in the APA cannot reasonably depend on the specific party before the court. Either the APA authorizes vacatur, or it does not.
More to the point, the Government‘s answer at oral argument 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 difficulty applying the remedy in practice. Some 78 years after the APA and 57 years after Abbott Laboratories, I would not suddenly throw out that sound and settled interpretation of the APA and eliminate entire classes of historically common and vitally important litigation against federal 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 remеdy in APA challenges to agency rules. The Government‘s position therefore would fundamentally reshape administrative law, leaving administrative agencies with extraordinary new power to issue rules free from potential suits by unregulated but adversely affected parties—businesses, environmental plaintiffs, workers, the list goes on.
I agree with the longstanding consensus—a consensus based on text, history, precedent, and common sense—that vacatur is an appropriate remedy when a federal court holds that an agency rule is unlawful. Because vacatur remains an
CORNER POST, INC., PETITIONER v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM
603 U. S. ____ (2024)
JACKSON, J., dissenting
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 define for all purposes when a ‘cause of action’ first ‘accrues.‘” Crown Coat Front Co. v. United States, 386 U.S. 503, 517 (1967). Today, the majority throws that caution to the wind and engages in the same kind of misguided reasoning about statutory limitations periods that we have previously admonished.
The flawed reasoning and far-reaching results of the Court‘s ruling in this case are staggering. First, the reasoning. The text and context of the relevant statutory provisions plainly reveal that, for facial challenges to agency regulations, the 6-year limitations period in
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 destabilizing for both Government and businesses. It also allows well-heeled litigants to game the system by creating new entities or finding new plaintiffs whenever they blow past the statutory deadline.
The majority refuses to accept the straightforward, commonsense, and singularly plausible reading of the limitations statute that Congress wrote. In dоing 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 determining when Congress meant for them to accrue. The facts of this very case illustrate the absurdity of the majority‘s one-size-fits-all approach. The procedural history is also a prime example of the gamesmanship that statutory limitations periods are enacted to prevent.
A
Start with the relevant agency regulation. In 2010, Congress required the Federal Reserve Board to issue rules for debit-card transaction fees. See
As often happens, affected parties challenged Regulation II almost immediately after the Board issued it. Several large
B
Now consider the facts of this challenge. In the majority‘s telling, this is about a single “truckstop and convenience store located in Watford City, North Dakota.” Ante, at 1.
Not quite. Rather, two large trade groups initially filed 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, another 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
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 filed 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 arguments, 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 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 Corner 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 regulation issued back in 2011. (One wonders how a company that formed against the backdrop of a long-settled rule could possibly 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-specific limitations rule, giving an entity
The District Court rejected Corner Post‘s argument, following the lead of every court of appeals that had ever addressed accrual of an APA facial challenge.2 It held that the addition of Corner Post as a plaintiff did not make a difference to the timeliness of the business groups’ claims. The Eighth Circuit affirmed, holding that “when plaintiffs bring a facial challenge to a final agency action, the right of action accrues, and the limitations period begins to run, upon publication 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 Congress 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 publication of the rule. Instead, it holds that an APA claim accrues “when the plaintiff is injured by final agency action.” Ante, at 1. The majority maintains that the text of
To explain how the majority got this ruling wrong, I find it necessary to provide the right answer. Here, the relevant statutory text is the catchall limitations provision for suits brought against the United States:
A
When sovereign immunity has been waived, the Federal Government is often sued, and Congress has enacted statutes 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 limitations for different types of suits.
Most statutes of limitations are context specific. For example, a tort claim against the United States typically must be brought “within two years after such claim
The statute at issue here—
Consistent with the broad scope of its potential application,
To start, the statute tells us to look at when “the right of action first accrues.” (Emphasis added.) The word “first” directs us to start thе clock at the earliest possible opportunity 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 underlying statute (here the APA) provides “the right of action,” not
B
A proper understanding of the word “accrues” makes clear that this term is far more flexible 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 definite 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 define for all purposes when a ‘cause of action’ first ‘accrues‘“).
But, for some reason, that does not stop the majority from trying here. Its opinion repeatedly asserts that the ordinary meaning of accrual is that claims accrue only when a plaintiff can sue. See ante, at 6-10.3
Far from imposing a one-size-fits-all definition of the word “accrue,” this Court has traditionally taken a claim-specific view: “[A] right accrues when it comes into existence.” United States v. Lindsay, 346 U. S. 568, 569 (1954). For example, 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
The majority nevertheless decrees today that accrual must always be plaintiff specific—i.e., that a claim cannot accrue until “this particular plaintiff” can bring suit. Ante, at 14. But that is not what
The dictionary definitions on which the majority relies further highlight this important observation. A claim accrues, according to those definitions, “‘when a suit may be maintained thereon‘” or upon the “‘coming or springing into existence of a right to sue.‘” Ante, at 7 (emphasis added) (first quoting Black‘s Law Dictionary 37 (4th ed. 1951), then quoting Ballentine‘s Law Dictionary 15-16 (2d ed. 1948)). Again, and notably, these dictionaries speak of a right to sue, not the plaintiff‘s right to sue. Like
Of course, many of our cases do say that a claim accrues when “‘the plaintiff has a complete and present cause of action.‘” E.g., Gabelli v. SEC, 568 U. S. 442, 448 (2013); Wallace 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 Cleaning Pension Trust Fund v. Ferbar Corp. of Cal., 522 U. S. 192, 201 (1997). But those statements were made in the context of particular cases, each of which dealt with plaintiff-specific causes of action. See, e.g., Gabelli, 568 U. S., at 446 (civil enforcement claim by the Securities and Exchange
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 specific to the particular plaintiff. But, as discussed below, it is not similarly plaintiff specific to bring a claim saying, for example, that a particular regulation is invalid because it “exceeds the Board‘s statutory authority,” or because 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 specific, that is just because underlying legal claims are often plaintiff specific. The precedents the majority cites never say otherwise; i.e., they do not tell us that accrual must always be plaintiff specific.
The majority‘s other hard-and-fast distinction—between statutes of limitations and statutes of repose—fares no better. See ante, at 9-10. The majority sets up a dichotomy: Statutes of limitations are plaintiff-centric rules that “‘require plaintiffs to pursue diligent prosecution of known claims,‘” while statutes of repose emphasize finality and are tied to “‘the last culpable act or omission of the defendant.‘” Ante, at 9 (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 as the majority imagines. It is true that statutes of repose are considered to be “defendant-protective.” Ante, at 10. But the same is true of statutes of limitations. “The very purpose of a period of limitation is that there may be, at some definitely 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 finality for defendants and prevent 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
III
Because different claims accrue at different times, we must look to the specific types of claims that the plaintiffs have brought and consider the context in which the limitations 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 specific. See, e.g., Wallace, 549 U. S., at 389 (relying on torts treatises to explain the “distinctive rule” for commencement of limitations period for false imprisonment suits); Franconia Associates 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-specific discovery rule to determine accrual). In other words, to understand when “the right of action” accrues under
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.,
Take the Administrative Orders Review Act (also known as the Hobbs Act), for example. See
Despite the dozens of statutes that start the limitations period at the moment of
The Court says we must ignore these other statutes because they post-date Congress‘s 1948 enactment of
Somehow, the majority draws the opposite conclusion. In its view, either Congress‘s consistently expressed intention is irrelevant to what
of negative inferences when interpreting statutes can be risky. “Context counts, and it is sometimes difficult to read much into the absence of a word that is present elsewhere in a statute.” Bartenwerfer v. Buckley, 598 U. S. 69, 78 (2023).
The majority‘s approach overlooks relevant context in all sorts of ways, including the fact that
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-specific 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 final agency action. So it is no wonder that Congress did not expressly mention this in the text of
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.
majority‘s conclusion that the accrual rule is plaintiff specific for APA claims is no more than ipse dixit.
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“).
Again, the complaint in this case proves the point. Before Corner Post was added as a plaintiff, the complaint alleged that (1) Regulation II is contrary to law and exceeds the Board‘s statutory authority, and (2) Regulation II is arbitrary and capricious. See Complaint in North Dakota Retail 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 interchange fees in a way that was not proportional to the specific 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. Be-fore the addition of Corner Post, the arbitrary-and-capricious claim said that the Board failed to consider certain congressional 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 filed in this case, three observations 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 specific to it—they are identical to the untimely claims the coplaintiff trade groups brought before. And, finally, although the majority puts procedural challenges to the side—asserting that its holding does not extend to those, see ante, at 21, 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 accrual rule in the administrative-law context (the limitations period starts running at the time of the final agency action) is patently superior to the majority‘s reading of
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 majority‘s approach creates uncertainty for the Government and every entity that relies on the Government to function. Agency rulemaking serves important “notice and predictability 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 follows specific, established processes, so parties have some predictability about how the rules of the road might change. But when every rule on the books can perpetually be challenged 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 forever remain elusive.
IV
Today‘s ruling is not only baseless. It is also extraordinarily consequential. In one fell swoop, the Court has effectively eliminated any limitations period for APA lawsuits, despite Congress‘s unmistakable policy determination to cut off such suits within six years of the final 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 final decision they make.
The majority‘s ruling makes legal challenges to decades-old agency decisions fair game, even though courts of appeals had previously applied
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 regulated industry its own personal statute of limitations to challenge longstanding regulations affects our Nation‘s economy. Why? Because administrative agencies establish the baseline rules around which businesses and individuals order their lives. When an agency publishes a final rule, and the period for challenging that rule passes, people in that industry 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 contracts 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 regulatory environment.
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 industry or not, can demand that well-established rules of engagement be revisited. But even setting aside those commonsense fairness cоncerns, 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 adjust 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 defined period for challenging the rules was needed at all.
Knowledgeable amici have explained that the majority‘s approach to accrual of the statute of limitations for APA claims undermines the “[s]tability, predictability, and consistency [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, inconsistent, judicially-driven policy changes that do not involve 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 Congress enacted a statute of limitations in the first place.
In Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, 603 U. S. ___ (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 ___ (slip op., at 30). Under that prior interpretive 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 brоught before courts newly unleashed from the constraints of any such 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 fixed 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 holdings in this case and Loper Bright have authorized has the potential to devastate the functioning of the Federal Government. Even more to the present point, that result simply cannot be what Congress intended when it enacted legislation that stood up and funded federal agencies and vested them with authority to set the ground rules for the individuals and entities that participate in the our economy and our society. It is utterly inconceivable that
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 hobble them. In particular, Congress can amend