Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-96-05343/USCOURTS-caDC-96-05343-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Auction Company of America
Appellant
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
Appellee

Document Text:

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued October 21, 1997 Decided December 19, 1997 

No. 96-5343

AUCTION COMPANY OF AMERICA,

APPELLANT

v.

FEDERAL DEPOSIT INSURANCE CORPORATION, AS MANAGER OF THE 

FSLIC RESOLUTION TRUST FUND,

APPELLEE

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(No. 94cv02006)

Alan M. Grayson argued the cause and filed the briefs for 

appellant.

J. Scott Watson, Counsel, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, argued the cause for appellee. With him on the 

brief were Ann S. DuRoss, Assistant General Counsel, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Robert D. McGillicuddy,

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Senior Counsel, Roberta H. Clark, Counsel, Federal Deposit 

Insurance Corporation, and Robert P. Fletcher.

Before: WALD, WILLIAMS and ROGERS, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge WILLIAMS.

WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge: Auction Company of America 

("Auction Company") seeks damages for breach of contract 

from the Federal Deposit Insurance Company ("FDIC") as 

statutory successor to the Resolution Trust Corporation 

("RTC"). It filed the first of three suits (and the one both 

parties regard as controlling for limitations purposes) four 

years and one day after the cause of action accrued. The 

filing was too late under the District of Columbia's three-year 

limitations period for contract actions, 12 D.C. Code § 301(7), 

but timely under either the general six-year limitations period 

for civil actions against the United States, 28 U.S.C. 

§ 2401(a), or the Missouri five-year contract limitations period, Mo. Ann. Stat. § 516.120(1). The district court ruled that 

the federal statute did not govern and performed a choice-oflaw analysis to arrive at the D.C. limitations period. It thus 

dismissed the complaint. Because we find that the federal 

statute does apply, we reverse and remand without reaching 

the state choice-of-law issue.

* * *

Auction Company's claim is that it entered into a contract 

with the RTC, as receiver for certain failed thrifts, to auction 

off key thrift assets. On September 18, 1990, after a number 

of actions that according to Auction Company impeded its 

efforts to organize the auction, the RTC terminated the 

contract and thereby breached it. Four years and one day 

later, on September 19, 1994, Auction Company filed its first 

complaint.

That complaint's caption named the RTC as defendant, but 

also said that the suit was against the RTC in its corporate 

capacity ("RTC-Corporate"). The RTC responded with a 

motion to dismiss, arguing that it was a legal entity distinct 

from the RTC as Receiver and could not be sued for contractual liabilities of the RTC as Receiver. In briefing the motion 

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it also asserted that the statutory provisions for administrative determination of claims against depository institutions, 

see 12 U.S.C. § 1821(d)(3)-(13), imposed an exhaustion requirement on Auction Company's contract claim. On June 

15, 1995, Auction Company submitted its claim for administrative determination by the RTC as Receiver, but at the 

same time protested that its contract action ran against the 

RTC, not against a depository institution, and was therefore 

not subject to the administrative claim allowance procedures.

12 U.S.C. § 1821(d)(5) requires the RTC as Receiver to 

allow or disallow claims within 180 days. Without waiting for 

the end of this period, Auction Company filed a second suit on 

October 4, 1995. This complaint named the RTC as Receiver 

as defendant but was in other respects identical to the first. 

The RTC as Receiver moved to dismiss on the grounds that 

Auction Company had not exhausted its administrative remedies. On February 9, 1996, following the disallowance of its 

claim by RTC as Receiver, Auction Company filed its third 

suit. By this time the RTC no longer existed; its authorizing 

statute provided for termination on December 31, 1995. See 

12 U.S.C. § 1441a(m)(1). The FDIC, its statutory successor, 

was named as defendant in the third suit and was substituted 

into the first two. We do not believe this substitution affects 

our analysis, and we will limit our focus to the FDIC.

All three actions were consolidated before the district 

court. The FDIC moved for judgment on the pleadings 

under Rule 12(c), seeking dismissal on the grounds that the 

District of Columbia three-year statute of limitations for 

contracts applied. Auction Company suggested instead the 

six-year limitations period for civil actions against the United 

States. See 28 U.S.C. § 2401(a). Alternatively, it noted that 

the contract at issue contained a choice-of-law clause selecting 

Missouri law, and argued that the Missouri statute of limitations should govern. The district court, treating the 12(c) 

motion as "essentially" one to dismiss under 12(b)(6), ruled 

that the FDIC was not "the United States" for the purposes 

of 28 U.S.C. § 2401(a). It thus proceeded to pick between 

the D.C. and the Missouri statutes of limitation. Reviewing 

de novo, we find error in the first determination and stop at 

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that juncture: Section 2401(a) does apply, and Auction Company's suits were timely.

* * *

28 U.S.C § 2401(a) provides that "every civil action commenced against the United States shall be barred unless the 

complaint is filed within six years after the right of action 

first accrues." The question for this appeal, broadly stated, is 

whether the FDIC counts as the United States for the 

purposes of this provision. The district court was impressed 

by O'Melveny & Myers v. FDIC, 512 U.S. 79 (1994), which 

contains the striking phrase "the FDIC is not the United 

States," id. at 85. But as the O'Melveny Court was not 

interpreting 28 U.S.C. § 2401(a), or indeed any other federal 

statute, this language cannot be controlling. Whether the 

FDIC should be treated as the United States depends on the 

context. See FDIC v. Hartford Ins. Co. of Ill., 877 F.2d 590, 

592-93 (7th Cir. 1989).

In O'Melveny the FDIC as Receiver sued the counsel of a 

failed savings and loan for malpractice and breach of fiduciary 

duty in failing to expose frauds in the management of the 

S&L. The lawyers defended on the grounds that the management was fully aware of its own frauds, and that knowledge of those frauds must therefore be imputed to the S&L, 

and thence to the FDIC as Receiver. The argument was a 

possible winner for the lawyers under California's imputation 

law, but the FDIC argued that state law should be displaced 

by federal common law. Immediately after the Court's declaration that the FDIC was not the United States, it twice 

discounted the significance of the remark, noting that: (1) 

even if the FDIC were the United States it would be begging 

the question to assume that it was asserting its own rights 

rather than those of the S&L; and (2) even if federal law 

governed in the sense explained in United States v. Kimbell 

Foods, Inc., 440 U.S. 715, 726 (1979), i.e., a sense that 

includes federal adoption of state law rules, that would "not 

much advance the ball." The Court decided that state law 

should apply: "[T]his is not one of those extraordinary cases 

in which the judicial creation of a federal rule of decision is 

warranted." O'Melveny, 512 U.S. at 89.

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Creating federal common law is one thing, applying a 

federal statute quite another. State law will generally fill the 

gaps in a comprehensive federal statutory scheme such as the 

FDIC's enabling legislation, but it will not do so to the 

exclusion of another applicable federal statute. See id. at 85. 

If § 2401(a) applies, it does so by its own terms, so long as 

not contradicted by some other federal statute, not by virtue 

of any lawmaking power of federal courts. On the question of 

the scope of "United States" in § 2401(a), O'Melveny provides 

no guidance.

So we turn to the statute itself. Section 2401(a) originated 

as the internal limitations period for the Little Tucker Act. 

See Christensen v. United States, 755 F.2d 705, 707 (9th Cir. 

1985); Saffron v. Dep't of the Navy, 561 F.2d 938, 944-45 

(D.C. Cir. 1977). That act and its big brother the Tucker Act 

collectively establish jurisdiction and a waiver of sovereign 

immunity for certain cases that are "against the United 

States" and founded upon various bases including "any express or implied contract with the United States." For 

contract cases, the Little Tucker Act gives the district courts 

jurisdiction, concurrent with the Court of Federal Claims, if 

the amount sought is less than $10,000. If more than $10,000 

is at issue, the suits lie only in the Court of Federal Claims 

under the Tucker Act proper. See 28 U.S.C. § 1346(a)(2); 28 

U.S.C. § 1491; see also Saffron, 561 F.2d at 944. In the 1946 

U.S. Code, the Little Tucker Act was located at 28 U.S.C. 

§ 41(20), which provided in part, "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." 

The Act of June 25, 1948 made minor changes in the wording 

and relocated this language to 28 U.S.C. § 2401(a), where it 

was to function as a catch-all limit for non-tort actions against 

the United States.

While this shuffle expanded the function of § 2401(a), see, 

e.g., Daingerfield Island Protective Society v. Babbitt, 40 

F.3d 442, 445 (D.C. Cir. 1994) (applying § 2401(a) to APA 

suit); Impro Products v. Block, 722 F.2d 845, 850 n.8 (D.C. 

Cir. 1983) (same), the section remained applicable as ever to 

Little Tucker Act suits. See, e.g., Loudner v. United States,

108 F.3d 896, 900 (8th Cir. 1997). Thus, barring some 

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exceptional statutory twist, the term "United States" must 

have the same meaning in § 2401(a) as in the Little Tucker 

Act. And hence if the FDIC as Receiver is the United States 

for the Little Tucker Act, it must be also for § 2401(a).

Does the Little Tucker Act treat the FDIC as Receiver as 

the United States? Jurisdiction over contract claims, under 

either Tucker Act, exists only for contracts "with the United 

States." If a contract with the FDIC as Receiver supports 

jurisdiction under either Tucker Act, then it counts as a 

contract with the United States, and the FDIC as Receiver 

must be "the United States" for the Tucker Acts. So the key 

question turns out to be whether a contract with the FDIC as 

Receiver will allow a Tucker Act suit. If that is so, then the 

equivalent meaning of "United States" in the Little Tucker 

Act and its statute of limitations allows us to conclude that 

the FDIC as Receiver is the United States for the purposes 

of § 2401(a).

The answer to the question is yes; the Act may be invoked 

whenever "a federal instrumentality acts within its statutory 

authority to carry out [the government's] purposes" as long 

as no other specific statutory provision bars jurisdiction. 

Butz Engineering Corp. v. United States, 499 F.2d 619, 622 

(Ct. Cl. 1974); see also L'Enfant Plaza Properties, Inc. v. 

United States, 668 F.2d 1211, 1212 (Ct. Cl. 1982). The FDIC 

concedes that the FDIC as Receiver is a federal instrumentality; indeed, eager to argue that it is not an agency, it 

pushes instrumentality status aggressively. See FDIC Br. at 

9-10. Doctrinally, the fit is relatively easy, and in fact 

contracts with the FDIC (and the RTC) have occasioned suits 

under the Tucker Act.1 See, e.g., Slattery v. United States,

__________

1 These decisions have often been cursory or unclear in their 

treatment of the Receiver/Corporate distinction, but the FDIC 

gives us no persuasive reason why the distinction makes a difference here. The RTC as Receiver did not inherit this contract from 

defunct depositories; it entered into the contract in furtherance of 

its statutory mission, and the rights and obligations at issue are its 

rights and obligations, not those of the depositories. Cf. O'Melveny, 512 U.S. at 85-87 (discussing role of FDIC as Receiver).

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35 Fed. Cl. 180 (1996) (FDIC contract); Suess v. United 

States, 33 Fed. Cl. 89 (1995) (Office of Thrift Supervision and 

RTC contracts). The FDIC has even argued, with some 

initial success, that because it is the United States, it can only

be sued under the Tucker Act and hence in the Court of 

Federal Claims. See, e.g., FDIC v. Hulsey, 22 F.3d 1472, 

1480 (10th Cir. 1994) (rejecting argument); Farha v. FDIC

963 F.2d 283, 288 (10th Cir. 1992) (accepting argument).

As the FDIC as Receiver counts as the United States for 

the Tucker Act, it does so for the Tucker Act (and general 

federal) statute of limitations. The FDIC appears to take 

refuge in the idea that the captioning of the lawsuit somehow 

outweighs the functional identity of the United States and its 

instrumentalities for the purposes of § 2401(a). But that 

argument has been overwhelmingly rejected, by this circuit 

and others, in the specific context of the application of 

§ 2401(a). See, e.g., Mason v. Judges of the U.S. Court of 

Appeals for D.C., 952 F.2d 423, 425 (D.C. Cir. 1991) ("[A] civil 

action against a federal official based on that person's official 

actions is 'a civil action commenced against the United States' 

under § 2401(a)."); Blassingame v. Secretary of the Navy,

811 F.2d 65, 70 (2d Cir. 1987) (discarding "fiction that an 

action alleging unlawful conduct by a federal official ... and 

an agency, is not an action against the United States"); 

Geyen v. Marsh, 775 F.2d 1303, 1307 (5th Cir. 1985) (same); 

Oppenheim v. Campbell, 571 F.2d 660 (D.C. Cir. 1978) (Civil 

Service Commission is United States for § 2401(a)); see also 

Hartford Insurance, 877 F.2d at 592 (in finding statute 

assigning venue for certain cases against the FDIC as receiver of national banking associations applicable even though 

claimant captioned case as against the United States, asks 

rhetorically, "What is 'the Federal Deposit Insurance Commission as receiver' other than part of the United States?"); 

Portsmouth Redevelopment and Housing Auth. v. Pierce, 706 

F.2d 471, 473 (4th Cir. 1983) (discussing conditions under 

which action against federal agency is against United States). 

In the context of the Administrative Procedure Act, to which 

§ 2401(a) applies, see Sierra Club v. Slater, 120 F.3d 623, 631 

(6th Cir. 1997); Daingerfield, 40 F.3d at 445, the statute's 

words reject the FDIC's approach: in authorizing suits for 

judicial review, it lumps together suits "against the United 

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States, the agency by its official title, or the appropriate 

officer." 5 U.S.C. § 703.

* * *

This is not a Tucker Act suit, however, nor one under the 

APA. The FDIC could have argued, though it did not, that 

what distinguishes a suit against an agency from a suit 

against the United States is not the captioning of the complaint but the operative waiver of immunity. Section 2401(a), 

of course, is not limited to suits brought under the Tucker Act 

or the APA, but the FDIC could have argued that waiver 

under a sue-or-be-sued clause is different. Such a clause, the 

argument would go, lifts the immunity of only the agency, not 

the United States (assuming that that makes sense), and a 

suit in district court based on such a clause is accordingly not 

against the United States, even if the Tucker Act provides 

alternative Court of Federal Claims jurisdiction. The parties 

disagree about the source of district court jurisdiction here, 

and one likely reason the FDIC did not make this argument 

is that its brief locates the basis for jurisdiction in the district 

court's ability to review administrative disallowances of claims 

against depositories.2

The FDIC's theory of jurisdiction, however, is wrong. As 

we observed earlier, supra n.1, Auction Company is not suing 

to enforce a contract with a defunct depository but to enforce 

one made initially and exclusively with the RTC. Accordingly, we examine this alternative argument on the basis of 

Auction Company's jurisdictional theory. Auction Company 

finds a waiver of sovereign immunity in FDIC's enabling 

legislation, the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and 

Enforcement Act of 1989 ("FIRREA"), which empowers it to 

sue and be sued "in any court of law or equity, State or 

Federal." 12 U.S.C. § 1819(a) Fourth; see also United 

States v. Nordic Village, Inc., 503 U.S. 30, 34 (1992) (such 

__________

2 We address this argument despite the FDIC's failure to raise it 

because, in some guises, it has jurisdictional overtones. See, e.g., 

Falls Riverway Realty, Inc. v. City of Niagara Falls, 754 F.2d 49, 

56 (2d Cir. 1985) (source of funds to pay judgment is jurisdictional 

issue).

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clauses are broad waivers of immunity). And Auction Company finds subject matter jurisdiction in FIRREA's "deemer" 

clause, 12 U.S.C. § 1819(b)(2)(A), which provides (with an 

exception not relevant here) that all actions to which the 

FDIC is a party "shall be deemed to arise under the laws of 

the United States." District courts can thus hear these 

actions as part of the "arising under" jurisdiction granted by 

28 U.S.C. § 1331. See Osborn v. Bank of the United States,

22 U.S. (9 Wheat) 738 (1824); Williams v. Federal Land 

Bank of Jackson, 954 F.2d 774, 776 (D.C. Cir. 1992).

The FDIC's argument, given these propositions, would be 

that when an agency is sued in its own name pursuant to a 

sue-or-be-sued clause, recovery is limited to funds within the 

agency's control, and the suit is not against the United States. 

A suit is against the United States, the argument goes, only if 

recovery would come from general Treasury funds. This 

position finds some support in the case law, beginning with 

suits against the Department of Housing and Urban Development but now reaching the FDIC and other agencies. See, 

e.g., Licata v. United States Postal Service, 33 F.3d 259, 262 

(3d Cir. 1994) (claim against Postal Service in its own name is 

not a claim against the United States); Far West Federal 

Bank v. Director, Office of Thrift Supervision, 930 F.2d 883, 

890 (Fed. Cir. 1991) (same with respect to FDIC); Falls 

Riverway Realty, Inc. v. City of Niagara Falls, 754 F.2d 49, 

55 (2d Cir. 1985)(same with respect to HUD); Industrial 

Indemnity, Inc. v. Landrieu, 615 F.2d 644, 646 (5th Cir. 1980) 

(same with respect to HUD). Cf., e.g., Portsmouth, 706 F.2d 

at 473 (suit against HUD is against United States because 

HUD monies are originally Treasury funds); Marcus Garvey 

Square, Inc. v. Winston Burnett Construction Co., 595 F.2d 

1126, 1131 (9th Cir. 1979) (same because no separate funds 

identified).

If we followed the analysis of these decisions, the FDIC 

could make the argument that this suit seeks funds under 

FDIC control and hence is not against the United States, 

pointing perhaps to 12 U.S.C. § 1821a(d), which limits some 

judgments to the assets of the FSLIC Resolution Fund. See 

Far West, 930 F.2d at 889-90 (finding funds within FDIC's 

control and rejecting Government argument of exclusive 

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Claims Court jurisdiction). But making the argument would 

not even be necessary. Simply accepting the terms of the 

debatethe notion that suits against the United States and 

suits that may only generate judgments against specific agency funds are mutually exclusive categorieswould spell victory for the FDIC. If the suit were against the United States 

(and not the FDIC), sovereign immunity would bar the 

district court from hearing it because the sue-or-be-sued 

clause does not waive the immunity of the United States and 

no other waiver allows district court jurisdiction; recast as a 

Tucker Act suit, this case would have to be brought in the 

Court of Federal Claims because it demands more than 

$10,000. If the suit were against the FDIC (and not the 

United States), § 2401(a) could not apply. Compare Portsmouth, 706 F.2d at 473 (finding exclusive Claims Court 

jurisdiction where suit is against U.S.) with Ammcon, Inc. v. 

Kemp, 826 F. Supp. 639, 643-44 (E.D.N.Y. 1993) (finding 

§ 2401(a) inapplicable where suit is against HUD). Because 

we believe this reasoning is fundamentally confused, we avoid 

it entirely and accept neither horn of the dilemma.

A demonstration of the confusion requires a brief trip into 

the origins of the distinction between suits against the United 

States and those against an agency. In Federal Housing 

Administration, Region No. 4 v. Burr, 309 U.S. 242 (1940), 

the Supreme Court noted that the statute authorizing suit 

against the Federal Housing Administration specified that 

claims could be paid only from funds made available to the 

agency under that very statute. Id. at 250. This of course 

did no more than state the unexceptionable principle that 

Congress, in waiving sovereign immunity for an agency, may 

limit the terms of the waiver.

As later cases picked up Burr, however, the doctrine 

changed shape. Marcus Garvey Square, 595 F.2d at 1131, 

restated it as the principle that a suit is against an agency 

only if plaintiffs can point to agency monies to satisfy a 

potential judgment. If no identifiable fund within the possession and control of the agency exists, the suit is in reality 

against the United States. For this proposition, Garvey cited 

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Burr and the sovereign immunity classics Dugan v. Rank,

372 U.S. 609, 620 (1963), and Land v. Dollar, 330 U.S. 731, 

738 (1947). The Garvey court concluded that because no such 

fund could be found, Claims Court jurisdiction was exclusive 

despite a sue-or-be-sued clause: Recovery would be against 

the U.S. and could be had only pursuant to the Tucker Act 

waiver.

It is at this point that confusion becomes evident. The 

practical weakness of the idea that recovery of funds within 

an agency's control is not recovery against the United States 

is, we think, well exposed by the Fourth Circuit's observation 

that "[t]he funds appropriated to HUD ... clearly originate 

in the public treasury, and they do not cease to be public 

funds after they are appropriated." Portsmouth, 706 F.2d at 

473-74. Cf. Kauffman v. Anglo-American School of Sofia,

28 F.3d 1223, 1227-28 (D.C. Cir. 1994) ("[D]iversion of resources from a private entity created to advance federal 

interests has effects similar to those of diversion of resources 

directly from the Treasury.").3

The logical fallacy is just as clear. To ascertain whether a 

suit is against the United States, rather than a federal 

agency, the Marcus Garvey court and similar cases have 

turned to the test enunciated in Dugan and Land. See, e.g., 

Portsmouth, 706 F.2d at 473 (citing Dugan); Industrial 

Indemnity, 615 F.2d at 646 (citing both); Marcus Garvey,

595 F.2d at 1131 (citing both). But this test was designed to 

__________

3 The effects are similar because, regardless of the origin of the 

funds, their loss forces the Government "to choose between allowing 

its interests to be served less well and spending more money to 

make up the shortfall." Kauffman, 28 F.3d at 1227. It may 

sometimes be true, of course, that enough claims have already been 

allowed against a discrete fund to exhaust it, so that allowing a new 

claim will change the distribution to claimants but have no other 

effect on governmental interests. That might occur where the 

FDIC is merely determining claims that accrued against a depository institution before the FDIC's appointment as receiver, and will 

use only the institution's assets to satisfy the claims pro rata. As 

discussed in note 1, supra, this case is different.

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distinguish suits against private individuals from ones 

against the sovereign; it identifies those cases in which 

sovereign immunity vel non exists. See Dugan, 372 U.S. at 

620; Land, 330 U.S. at 738. Federal agencies or instrumentalities performing federal functions always fall on the "sovereign" side of that fault line; that is why they possess immunity that requires waiver. To say that suits against agencies 

are not against the United States in that sense is simply 

wrong; to say that they are against the United States and not 

the agency is to make "sue-or-be-sued" clauses nullities. The 

idea that the Dugan test may be used to draw two different 

linesthe line between suits against the United States and 

ones against private persons, and the line between suits 

against the United States and ones against its agenciesis 

confused at its core and we reject it.4 The source of funds for 

any recovery in this case may become an issue, but it is not 

jurisdictional and does not bear on whether a suit against the 

FDIC as Receiver is a suit against the United States for 

purposes of § 2401(a).

* * *

So we find the argument the FDIC did not make no more 

persuasive than the one it did. Focusing on the waiver of 

immunity is valuable, however, because it permits a deeper 

understanding of the nature of § 2401(a) and discloses a 

functional rationale for its application that is perhaps more 

satisfying than its historical origins in the Tucker Act. As a 

consequence of the different waivers of immunity available, 

plaintiffs suing the FDIC have a fairly wide choice of forum, 

__________

4 Distinguishing between suits against agencies and those against 

the United States would frequently be necessary if Tucker Act 

jurisdiction were preemptivethat is, if Tucker Act jurisdiction by 

its mere existence barred jurisdiction granted by another statute. 

It does not. If a separate waiver of sovereign immunity and grant 

of jurisdiction exist, district courts may hear cases over which, 

under the Tucker Act alone, the Court of Federal Claims would 

have exclusive jurisdiction. See Bowen v. Massachusetts, 487 U.S. 

879, 910 n.48 (1988); First Virginia Bank v. Randolph, 110 F.3d 75, 

77 (D.C. Cir. 1997).

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at least if they sue in contract.5 They may bring suit in the 

Court of Federal Claims, if they have a Tucker Act suit for 

more than $10,000; they may bring a Tucker Act suit for a 

lesser amount in either the Court of Federal Claims or a 

district court; and they may sue in any court of law or equity 

under the FDIC sue-or-be-sued clause. The question of 

whether to apply 28 U.S.C. § 2401(a) comes down to whether 

a specific limitations period is somehow tied to the choice of 

forum.

According to the FDIC, it should be: A suit under the sueor-be-sued clause, naming the FDIC as Receiver, should be 

subject to the appropriate state statute of limitations. A 

Tucker Act suit naming the United States should be subject 

to § 2401(a). What to do with a Tucker Act suit that does 

not name the United States as defendant (a small but nonempty class, see, e.g., Kline v. Cisneros, 76 F.3d 1236 (D.C. 

Cir. 1996); cf. Optiperu v. Overseas Private Investment Corporation, 640 F.Supp. 420, 421 (D.D.C. 1986)), is unclear. 

This sort of approach might make some sense if the Tucker 

Act and the sue-or-be-sued clause provided distinct causes of 

action. What each provides, however, is simply a waiver of 

sovereign immunity; the causes of action will be based on the 

contracts at issue. Accordingly, we can see no basis for tying 

the limitations period to the source of jurisdiction.

More specifically, § 2401(a) represents Congress's general 

qualificationon the limitations issueof its consent to suit 

against the United States. See Saffron, 561 F.2d at 941. To 

conclude that it applies, we need only find that the waiver 

contained in FIRREA's sue-or-be-sued clause did not displace 

it and thereby install whatever state law might fill the gap. 

This we have no difficulty doing; the FIRREA sue-or-besued clause does not usually operate to the exclusion of other 

federal statutes. See Meyer, 510 U.S. at 476. "The courts 

are not at liberty to pick and choose among congressional 

enactments, and when two statutes are capable of co-

__________

5 Tort claims are different; the Federal Tort Claims Act provides 

the exclusive avenue for relief where it applies. See 28 U.S.C. 

§ 2679(a); FDIC v. Meyer, 510 U.S. 471, 476 (1994).

USCA Case #96-5343 Document #317339 Filed: 12/19/1997 Page 13 of 14
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existence, it is the duty of the courts, absent a clearly 

expressed congressional intention to the contrary, to regard 

each as effective." Morton v. Mancari, 417 U.S. 535, 551 

(1974). The judgment of the district court is reversed and 

the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with 

this opinion.

So ordered.

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