(Slip Opinion) OCTOBER TERM, 2023 1 

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. 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

Syllabus 

CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS OF 

THE FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM 

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR 

THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT 

No. 22–1008. Argued February 20, 2024—Decided July 1, 2024 

Since it opened for business in 2018, petitioner Corner Post, like most 

merchants, has accepted debit cards as a form of payment. Debit card 

transactions require merchants to pay an “interchange fee” to the bank 

that issued the card. The fee amount is set by the payment networks

(such as Visa and MasterCard) that process the transaction. In 2010 

Congress tasked the Federal Reserve Board with making sure that interchange fees were “reasonable and proportional to the cost incurred 

by the issuer with respect to the transaction.” 15 U. S. C. §1693o– 

2(a)(3)(A). Discharging this duty, in 2011 the Board published Regulation II, which sets a maximum interchange fee of $0.21 per transaction plus .05% of the transaction’s value. 

In 2021, Corner Post joined a suit brought against the Board under 

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 timebarred under 28 U. S. C. §2401(a), the default six-year statute of limitations applicable to suits against the United States. The Eighth Circuit affirmed. 

Held: An APA claim does not accrue for purposes of §2401(a)’s 6-year

statute of limitations until the plaintiff is injured by final agency action. Pp. 4–23.

(a) The APA grants Corner Post a cause of action subject to certain 

conditions, see 5 U. S. C. §702 and §704, and 28 U. S. C. §2401(a) delineates the time period in which Corner Post may assert its claim. 

Section 702 authorizes persons injured by agency action to obtain judicial review by suing the United States or one of its agencies, officers, 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS 

Syllabus 

or employees. See Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner, 387 U. S. 136, 140– 

141. The Court has explained that §702 “requir[es] a litigant to show, 

at the outset of the case, that he is injured in fact by agency action.” 

Director, Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs v. Newport News 

Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co., 514 U. S. 122, 127. A litigant therefore 

cannot bring an APA claim unless and until she suffers an injury. 

While §702 equips injured parties with a cause of action, §704 provides

that judicial review is available in most cases only for “final agency 

action.” Bennett v. Spear, 520 U. S. 154, 177–178. Reading §702 and

§704 together, a plaintiff may bring an APA claim only after she is 

injured by final agency action. 

To determine whether Corner Post’s APA claim is timely, the Court

must interpret §2401(a), which provides that civil actions against the

United States “shall be barred unless the complaint is filed within six 

years after the right of action first accrues.” The Board says an APA 

claim “accrues” under §2401(a) when agency action is “final” for purposes of §704; the claim can accrue for purposes of the statute of limitations even before the plaintiff suffers an injury. The Court disagrees.

A right of action “accrues” when the plaintiff has a “complete and present cause of action,” which is when she has the right to “file suit and

obtain relief.” Green v. Brennan, 578 U. S. 547, 554. Because an APA 

plaintiff may not file suit and obtain relief until she suffers an injury 

from final agency action, the statute of limitations does not begin to 

run until she is injured. Pp. 4–6.

(b) Congress enacted §2401(a) in 1948, two years after it enacted the 

APA. Section 2401(a)’s predecessor was the statute-of-limitations provision for the Little Tucker Act, which provided for district court jurisdiction over certain claims against the United States. When Congress 

revised and recodified the Judicial Code in 1948, it converted the Little 

Tucker Act’s statute of limitations into §2401(a)’s general statute of 

limitations for all suits against the Government. But Congress continued to start the statute of limitations period when the right “accrues.” 

Compare 36 Stat. 1093 (“after the right accrued for which the claim is

made”) with §2401(a) (“after the right of action first accrues”). 

“Accrue” had a well-settled meaning in 1948, as it does now: A “right 

accrues when it comes into existence,” United States v. Lindsay, 346 

U. S. 568, 569—i.e., “when the plaintiff has a complete and present 

cause of action,” Gabelli v. SEC, 568 U. S. 442, 448. This 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 Cleaning 
 

 

 

 

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 3 

Syllabus 

Pension 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 §2401(a) as a defendantprotective statute of repose that begins to run when agency action becomes final. A statute of repose “puts an outer limit on the right to 

bring a civil action” that is “measured. . . from the date of the last culpable act or omission of the defendant.” CTS Corp. v. Waldburger, 573 

U. S. 1, 8. But §2401(a)’s plaintiff-focused language makes it a “statute of limitations,” which—in contradistinction to statutes of repose—

are “based on the date when the claim accrued.” Id., at 7–8. Pp. 6–10. 

(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,

§2401(a) does not refer to the date of the agency action’s “entry” or 

“promulgat[ion]”; it says “right of action first accrues.” That textual 

difference matters. The latter language reflects a statute of limitations and the former a statute of repose. Moreover, the specific review 

provisions illustrate that Congress has sometimes employed the 

Board’s preferred final-agency-action rule—but did not do so in 

§2401(a). As the Court observed in Rotkiske v. Klemm, it is “particularly inappropriate” to read language into a statute of limitations 

“when, as here, Congress has shown that it knows how to adopt the 

omitted language or provision.” 589 U. S. 8, 14. Moreover, most of the 

finality-focused statutes that the Board cites came after §2401(a) was 

enacted in 1948. These other, textually distinct statutes therefore do 
 

 

 

 

4 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS 

Syllabus 

not establish a background presumption that the limitations period for 

facial challenges to agency rules begins when the rule is final. Given 

the settled, plaintiff-centric meaning of “right of action first accrues” 

in 1948—not to mention in the Little Tucker Act before it—the Board 

cannot “displace” this “standard rule” for limitations periods. Green, 

578 U. S., at 554. 

While the Board argues that §2401(a) should not be interpreted to 

adopt a “challenger-by-challenger” approach, the standard accrual 

rule that §2401(a) exemplifies is plaintiff specific. The Board reads 

§2401(a) as if it says “the complaint is filed within six years after a 

right of action [i.e., anyone’s right of action] first accrues”—which it 

does not say. Rather, §2401(a)’s text focuses on when the specific

plaintiff had the right to sue: It says “the complaint is filed within six 

years after the right of action first accrues.” (Emphasis added). And 

the Court has explained that the traditional accrual rule looks to when 

the plaintiff—this particular plaintiff—has a complete and present 

cause of action. See Green, 578 U. S., at 554. No precedent supports 

the Board’s hypothetical “when could someone else have sued” sort of 

inquiry.

Importing the Board’s special administrative-law rule into §2401(a)

would create a defendant-focused rule for agency suits while retaining 

the traditional challenger-specific accrual rule for other suits against

the United States. That would give the same statutory text—“right of 

action first accrues”—different meanings in different contexts, even 

though those words had a single, well-settled meaning when Congress 

enacted §2401(a). The Court “will not infer such an odd result in the 

absence of any such indication in the text of the limitations period.” 

Green, 578 U. S., at 554. Pp. 10–16. 

(2) The Board maintains that §2401(a)’s tolling provision—which 

provides that “[t]he action of any person under legal disability or beyond the seas at the time the claim accrues may be commenced within

three years after the disability ceases”—“reflects Congress’s understanding that a claim can ‘accrue[]’ for purposes of Section 2401(a)”

even when a person is unable to sue. Brief for Respondent 24. While 

true, the tolling exception applies when the plaintiff had a complete

and present cause of action after he was injured but his legal disability 

or absence from the country prevented him from bringing a timely suit. 

The exception sheds no light on when the clock started for Corner Post. 

P. 16. 

(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 
Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 5 

Syllabus 

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 the right 

to “procure the action” after the employee died. Given this unique context, Koons does not contradict the proposition that a claim generally 

accrues when the plaintiff has a complete and present cause of action. 

Next, the Board relies on dicta in Crown Coat to support its contention 

that the word “accrues” can take on different meanings in different 

contexts. But the Board misreads Crown Coat, which did not suggest 

that the words “right of action first accrues” in a single statute should 

mean different things in different contexts. Instead, the Court interpreted §2401(a)—the very statute at issue here—to embody the traditional rule that a claim accrues when the plaintiff has the right to 

bring suit in court. Pp. 16–20. 

 (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 §2401(a) or created a general statute 

of repose for agencies, but it did not. In any event, the Board’s policy 

concerns are overstated because regulated parties may always challenge a regulation as exceeding the agency’s statutory authority in enforcement proceedings against them. Moreover, there are significant 

interests supporting the plaintiff-centric accrual rule, including the 

APA’s “basic presumption” of judicial review, Abbott Labs., 387 U. S., 

at 140, and our “deep-rooted historic tradition that everyone should 

have his own day in court,” Richards v. Jefferson County, 517 U. S. 

793, 798. Pp. 20–23. 

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. 
 

 

 

_________________ 

_________________ 

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 1 

Opinion of the Court 

NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the 

United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of 

Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C. 20543, 

pio@supremecourt.gov, of any typographical or other formal errors. 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

No. 22–1008 

CORNER POST, INC., PETITIONER v. BOARD 

OF GOVERNORS OF THE FEDERAL 

RESERVE SYSTEM 

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF 

APPEALS FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT 

[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.” 28 U. S. C. 

§2401(a). We must decide when a claim brought under the

Administrative Procedure Act “accrues” for purposes of this 

provision. The answer is straightforward. A claim accrues 

when the plaintiff has the right to assert it in court—and in

the case of the APA, that is when the plaintiff is injured by 

final agency action. 

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 
 

 

 

2 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS 

Opinion of the Court 

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, 15 U. S. C. §1693o–2(a)(3)(A).

Discharging this duty, the Board promulgated Regulation

II, which sets a maximum interchange fee of $0.21 per

transaction plus .05% of the transaction’s value. See Debit 

Card Interchange Fees and Routing, 76 Fed. Reg. 43394, 

43420 (2011). The Board published the rule on July 20, 

2011. 

Four months later, a group of retail-industry trade 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 
Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 3 

Opinion of the Court 

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 5 U. S. C. §§706(2)(A), (C).

The District Court dismissed the suit as barred by 28

U. S. C. §2401(a), the applicable statute of limitations, 2022

WL 909317, *7–*9 (ND, Mar. 11, 2022), and the Eighth Circuit affirmed, North Dakota Retail Assn. v. Board of Governors of FRS, 55 F. 4th 634 (2022). Following other Circuits,

it distinguished between “facial” challenges to a rule (like

Corner Post’s challenge to Regulation II) and challenges to

a rule “as-applied” to a particular party. Id., at 640–641. 

The Eighth Circuit held that “when plaintiffs bring a facial

challenge to a final agency action, the right of action accrues, and the limitations period begins to run, upon publication of the regulation.” Id., at 641. On this view, 

§2401(a)’s 6-year limitations period began in 2011, when

the Board published Regulation II, and expired in 2017, before Corner Post swiped its first debit card. See id., at 643. 

Corner Post’s suit was therefore too late. 

The Eighth Circuit’s decision deepened a circuit split over 

when §2401(a)’s statute of limitations begins to run for APA 

suits challenging agency action. At least six Circuits now 

hold that the limitations period for “facial” APA challenges

begins on the date of final agency action—e.g., when the 

rule was promulgated—regardless of when the plaintiff was 

injured. See, e.g., id., at 641; Wind River Min. Corp. v. 

United States, 946 F. 2d 710, 715 (CA9 1991); DunnMcCampbell Royalty Interest, Inc. v. National Park Serv., 

112 F. 3d 1283, 1287 (CA5 1997); Harris v. FAA, 353 F. 3d 

1006, 1009–1010 (CADC 2004); Hire Order Ltd. v. 

Marianos, 698 F. 3d 168, 170 (CA4 2012); Odyssey Logistics 

& Tech. Corp. v. Iancu, 959 F. 3d 1104, 1111–1112 (CA Fed. 
 

 

 

 

4 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS 

Opinion of the Court 

2020). By contrast, the Sixth Circuit has stated a generally 

applicable rule that §2401(a)’s limitations period begins

when the plaintiff is injured by agency action, even if that 

injury did not occur until many years after the action became final. Herr v. United States Forest Serv., 803 F. 3d 

809, 820–822 (2015) (“When a party first becomes aggrieved 

by a regulation that exceeds an agency’s statutory authority 

more than six years after the regulation was promulgated,

that party may challenge the regulation without waiting for

enforcement proceedings” (emphasis deleted)). We granted 

certiorari to resolve the split. 600 U. S. ___ (2023). 

II 

Three statutory provisions control our analysis: 5 U. S. C.

§702 and §704, the relevant APA provisions, and 28 U. S. C. 

§2401(a), the relevant statute of limitations. The APA provisions grant Corner Post a cause of action subject to certain conditions, and §2401(a) sets the window within which

Corner Post can assert its claim. 

Section 702 authorizes persons injured by agency action

to obtain judicial review by suing the United States or one

of its agencies, 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.” 5 U. S. C. §702. We have explained 

that §702 “requir[es] a litigant to show, at the outset of the 

case, that he is injured in fact by agency action.” Director, 

Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs v. Newport News 

Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co., 514 U. S. 122, 127 (1995).

Thus, a litigant cannot bring an APA claim unless and until

she suffers an injury.1 

—————— 1The dissent asserts that §702 “restricts who may challenge agency 
 

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 5 

Opinion of the Court 

While §702 equips injured parties with a cause of action, 

§704 limits the agency actions that are subject to judicial

review. Unless another statute makes the agency’s action

reviewable (and none does for Regulation II), judicial review is available only for “final agency action.” §704. In 

most cases, then, a plaintiff can only challenge an action 

that “mark[s] the consummation of the agency’s decisionmaking process” and is “one by which rights or obligations have been determined, or from which legal consequences will flow.” Bennett v. Spear, 520 U. S. 154, 177– 

178 (1997) (internal quotation marks omitted). Note that 

§702’s injury requirement and §704’s finality requirement

work hand in hand: Each is a “necessary, but not by itself 

. . . sufficient, ground for stating a claim under the APA.” 

Herr, 803 F. 3d, at 819. 

The applicable statute of limitations, 28 U. S. C. 

§2401(a), contains the language we must interpret: “[E]very 

civil action commenced against the United States shall be 

barred unless the complaint is filed within six years after 

the right of action first accrues.” (Emphasis added.) This 

provision applies generally to suits against the United

States unless the timing provision of a more specific statute 

displaces it. See, e.g., 33 U. S. C. §1369(b) (deadline to challenge certain agency actions under the Clean Water Act).

The Board contends that an APA claim “accrues” when 

agency action is “final” for purposes of §704—injury, it says, 

—————— 

action,” yet its injury requirement “says nothing about” the cause of action or elements of the claim. Post, at 16. But surely the dissent does 

not mean to suggest that an uninjured person may bring an APA claim. 

Whether one calls injury a restriction on who may sue or an element of

the cause of action, the relevant, undisputed point is that a plaintiff cannot sue under the APA unless she is “injured in fact by agency action.” 

Newport News, 514 U. S., at 127. 
 

 

6 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS 

Opinion of the Court 

is necessary for the suit but irrelevant to the statute of limitations.2 We disagree. A right of action “accrues” when the 

plaintiff has a “complete and present cause of action”—i.e., 

when she has the right to “file suit and obtain relief.” Green 

v. Brennan, 578 U. S. 547, 554 (2016) (internal quotation 

marks omitted). An APA plaintiff does not have a complete 

and present cause of action until she suffers an injury from

final agency action, so the statute of limitations does not 

begin to run until she is injured. 

III 

Congress enacted §2401(a) in 1948, two years after it enacted the APA. See 62 Stat. 971. Section 2401(a)’s predecessor was the statute-of-limitations provision for the Little

Tucker Act, which gave district courts jurisdiction over nontort monetary claims not exceeding $10,000 against the

United States. See §24, 36 Stat. 1093 (“That no suit against 

the Government of the United States shall be allowed under 

this paragraph unless the same shall have been brought 

within six years after the right accrued for which the claim 

is made”); Brief for Professor Aditya Bamzai et al. as Amici 

Curiae 5–6. When Congress revised and recodified the Judicial Code in 1948, it converted the Little Tucker Act’s statute of limitations into a general statute of limitations for all 

—————— 2The Board leaves open the possibility that someone could bring an asapplied challenge to a rule when the agency relies on that rule in enforcement proceedings against that person, even if more than six years have 

passed since the rule’s promulgation. But Corner Post, as a merchant 

rather than a payment network, is not regulated by Regulation II—so it

will never be the target of an enforcement action in which it could challenge that rule. JUSTICE KAVANAUGH asserts that “Corner Post can obtain relief in this case only because the APA authorizes vacatur of agency 

rules.” Post, at 1 (concurring opinion). Whether the APA authorizes vacatur has been subject to thoughtful debate by Members of this Court. 

See, e.g., United States v. Texas, 599 U. S. 670, 693–702 (2023) 

(GORSUCH, J., concurring in judgment). We took this case only to decide

how §2401(a)’s statute of limitations applies to APA claims. We therefore 

assume without deciding that vacatur is available under the APA. 
 

 

 

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 7 

Opinion of the Court 

suits against the Government—replacing “under this paragraph” with “every civil action against the United States.”

But Congress continued to start the 6-year limitations period when the right “accrues.” Compare 36 Stat. 1093 (“after the right accrued for which the claim is made”) with

§2401(a) (“after the right of action first accrues”). 

In 1948, as now, “accrue” had a well-settled meaning: A 

“right accrues when it comes into existence,” United States 

v. Lindsay, 346 U. S. 568, 569 (1954)—i.e., “‘when the 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 
 

8 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS 

Opinion of the Court 

§2401(a), it was well understood 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. 

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 of the limitations 

period.” Green, 578 U. S., at 554 (quoting Reiter v. Cooper, 

507 U. S. 258, 267 (1993)). “Unless Congress has told us

otherwise in the legislation at issue, a cause of action does 

not become ‘complete and present’ for limitations purposes 

until the plaintiff can file suit and obtain relief.” Bay Area 

Laundry, 522 U. S., at 201. 

There is good reason to conclude that Congress codified

the traditional accrual rule in §2401(a). Nothing “in the

text of [§2401(a)’s] limitations period” gives any indication 

that it begins to run before the plaintiff has a complete and 
 

 

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 9 

Opinion of the Court 

present cause of action. Green, 578 U. S., at 554. Rather, 

§2401(a) uses standard language that had a well-settled 

meaning in 1948: “right of action first accrues.” Moreover, 

Congress knew how to depart from the traditional rule to

create a limitations period that begins with the defendant’s 

action instead of the plaintiff ’s injury: Just six years before

it enacted §2401(a), Congress passed the Emergency Price

Control Act of 1942, which required challenges to Office of 

Price Administration actions to be filed “[w]ithin a period of 

sixty days after the issuance of any regulation or order.” 

§203(a), 56 Stat. 31 (emphasis added); see also Administrative Orders Review Act (Hobbs Act), §4, 64 Stat. 1130 (1950) 

(allowing petitions for review “within sixty days after entry

of ” a “final order reviewable under this Act”). Section 

2401(a), by contrast, stuck with the standard accrual language.

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 §2401(a), with its reference to when the 

right of action “accrues,” to a tee. “A statute of repose, on 

the other hand, puts an outer limit on the right to bring a

civil action” that is “measured not from the date on which 

the claim accrues but instead from the date of the last culpable act or omission of the defendant.” 573 U. S., at 8. 

Such statutes bar “‘any suit that is brought after a specified 

time since the defendant acted . . . even if this period ends

before the plaintiff has suffered a resulting injury.’” Ibid. 

(quoting Black’s 1546). That describes statutes like the 

Hobbs Act, which sets a filing deadline of 60 days from the 

“entry” of the agency order. 64 Stat. 1130. Statutes of limitations “require plaintiffs to pursue diligent prosecution of 

known claims”; statutes of repose reflect a “legislative judgment that a defendant should be free from liability after the 
 

 

10 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS 

Opinion of the Court 

legislatively determined period of time.” CTS Corp., 573 

U. S., at 8–9 (internal quotation marks omitted).3 The 

Board asks us to interpret §2401(a) as a defendantprotective statute of repose that begins to run when agency 

action becomes final. But §2401(a)’s plaintiff-focused language makes it an accrual-based statute of limitations. 

* * * 

Section 2401(a) embodies the plaintiff-centric traditional 

rule that a statute of limitations begins to run only when

the plaintiff has a complete and present cause of action. Because injury, not just finality, is required to sue under the 

APA, Corner Post’s cause of action was not complete and

present until it was injured by Regulation II. Therefore, its 

suit is not barred by the statute of limitations. 

IV 

The Board concedes that some claims accrue for purposes

of §2401(a) when the plaintiff has a complete and present 

cause of action—in other words, it admits that “accrue” carries its usual meaning for some claims. But it argues that 

facial challenges to agency rules are different, accruing 

when agency action is final rather than when the plaintiff 

can assert her claim. See also post, at 5–6 (JACKSON, J., 

dissenting). The Board raises several arguments to support 

its position, but none work. 

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 

—————— 3Perplexingly, the dissent rejects this distinction, post, at 10–11, even 

though our precedent clearly recognizes it: CTS Corp. acknowledged the

“substantial overlap between the policies of the two types of statute” but 

concluded nonetheless that “each has a distinct purpose and each is targeted at a different actor.” 573 U. S., at 8. 
 

 

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 11 

Opinion of the Court 

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.

28 U. S. C. §§2342, 2344; see also, e.g., 29 U. S. C. §655(f ) 

(suits challenging Occupational Safety and Health Administration standards must be filed “prior to the sixtieth day

after such standard is promulgated”). The Board contends 

that such statutes reflect a standard administrative-law 

practice of starting the limitations period when “any proper

plaintiff ” can challenge the final agency action. Brief for 

Respondent 9. There is “no sound basis,” it insists, “for instead applying a challenger-by-challenger approach to calculate the limitations period on APA claims.” Ibid.; see also 

post, at 9–10 (JACKSON, J., dissenting). 

1 

This argument hits the immutable obstacle of §2401(a)’s 

text. Unlike the specific review provisions that the Board

cites, §2401(a) does not refer to the date of the agency action’s “entry” or “promulgat[ion]”; it says “right of action

first accrues.” That textual difference matters. To begin, 

the latter language reflects a statute of limitations and the 

former a statute of repose. Moreover, the specific review

provisions actually undercut the Board’s argument, because they illustrate that Congress has sometimes employed the Board’s preferred final-agency-action rule—but 

did not do so in §2401(a). As we observed in Rotkiske v. 

Klemm, it is “particularly inappropriate” to read language

into a statute of limitations “when, as here, Congress has 

shown that it knows how to adopt the omitted language or

provision.” 589 U. S. 8, 14 (2019).

In arguing to the contrary, post, at 12–16, the dissent ignores the textual differences between §2401(a) and finality-
 

12 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS 

Opinion of the Court 

focused specific review provisions—flouting Rotkiske’s admonition to heed such distinctions. According to the dissent, we cannot expect “Congress to have explicitly stated 

that accrual in §2401(a) starts at the point of final agency

action when §2401(a) is a residual provision” that applies

generally. Post, at 15. But §2401(a)’s text reflects a choice:

Congress took the Little Tucker Act’s plaintiff-focused limitations period—which began when “the right accrued for

which the claim is made,” 36 Stat. 1093—and made it generally applicable to “every” suit against the United States,

§2401(a); see Part III, supra. Congress could have created

a separate residual provision for suits challenging agency 

action and pegged its limitations period to the moment of

finality, using statutes like the Emergency Price Control 

Act as a model. It chose a different path.

Undeterred, the dissent insists that by the time §2401(a) 

was enacted, Congress had “uniformly expressed [a] judgment” that the limitations period for agency suits should be 

defendant-centric and start with finality. Post, at 14. 

Again, this argument disregards §2401(a)’s text in favor of

alleged congressional intent divined from other statutes 

with very different language. “As this Court has repeatedly

stated, the text of a law controls over purported legislative

intentions unmoored from any statutory text”; the Court 

“may not ‘replace the actual text with speculation as to Congress’ intent.’” Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta, 597 U. S. 629, 

642 (2022) (quoting Magwood v. Patterson, 561 U. S. 320, 

334 (2010)).

In any event, the dissent misunderstands the history. 

See post, at 14, and n. 6. (Notably, the Board itself does not 

make this argument.) While the Emergency Price Control 

Act of 1942 preceded the APA (1946) and §2401(a) (1948), 

most finality-focused limitations provisions, like the Hobbs 

Act (1950), came later. See post, at 12–13, and n. 5; e.g., 5 

U. S. C. §7703(b)(1) (added by 92 Stat. 1143 (1978)). To conjure its supposed backdrop, the dissent cites a hodgepodge 
Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 13 

Opinion of the Court 

of other pre-1948 statutes that started the clock at finality. 

Post, at 14, n. 6. But these statutes generally governed

challenges to orders adjudicating a party’s own rights—

what we today might call “as-applied” challenges. For example, 7 U. S. C. §194(a) provided a 30-day limitations period for a meatpacker to appeal an order finding that the 

packer “has violated or is violating any provision” of the 

statute regulating business practices in the meatpacking

industry. 42 Stat. 161–162; see also, e.g., 15 U. S. C. §45(c) 

(persons required by a Federal Trade Commission order to

cease a business practice may obtain review of that order

within 60 days). Statutes like these do not contradict the 

plaintiff-centric standard accrual rule, because a party subject to such an order suffers legally cognizable injury at the

same time that the order becomes final.4 

Thus, even if the “intention” Congress “expressed” in textually distinct statutes could overcome §2401(a)’s language, 

post, at 14, the dissent’s history would not support its supposed background presumption—that the limitations period for facial challenges to regulations begins when the 

rule becomes final even if the plaintiff does not yet have a 

complete and present cause of action. Instead, the best 

course, as always, is to stick with the ordinary meaning of

the text that actually applies, §2401(a). Given the settled, 

plaintiff-centric meaning of “right of action first accrues” in 

—————— 4There is another reason to doubt the dissent’s supposed background 

limitations principle for facial challenges to agency rules: In the 1940s, 

“most administrative activity was adjudicative in nature”; agencies 

“rarely, if ever, adopted sweeping regulations.” K. Hickman & R. Pierce, 

1 Administrative Law §1.3, p. 26 (7th ed. 2024). The dissent errs by extrapolating a general congressional intent that all agency suits be subject 

to a finality-based limitations rule based on pre-1948 statutes that governed a subset of agency actions—adjudicative orders—and were enacted 

before facial challenges to regulations became common. It is hard to see 

how provisions governing when a party may challenge an order adjudicating her own rights could set any kind of background rule for facial

APA challenges to generally applicable regulations. 
 

 

14 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS 

Opinion of the Court 

1948—not to mention in the Little Tucker Act—the dissent 

cannot “displace” this “standard rule” with scattered citations to different, inapposite statutes. Green, 578 U. S., at 

554. 

2 

The standard accrual rule that §2401(a)’s limitations period exemplifies is plaintiff specific—even if repose provisions like the Hobbs Act eschew a “challenger-bychallenger” approach. Brief for Respondent 9. The Board’s 

rule would start the limitations period applicable to the

plaintiff not when she had a complete and present cause of 

action but when the agency action was final and, theoretically, some other plaintiff was injured and could have sued.

But §2401(a)’s text focuses on a specific plaintiff: “the complaint is filed within six years after the right of action first 

accrues.” (Emphasis added.) 

The dissent disputes §2401(a)’s plaintiff specificity by

pointing out that it does not say “the plaintiff ’s right of action first accrues.” Post, at 9. True, but it does use the definite article “the” to link “the complaint” with “the right of 

action.” So the most natural interpretation is that its limitations period begins when the cause of action associated 

with the complaint—the plaintiff ’s cause of action—is complete. And while the dissent cites dictionary definitions of 

“accrue” that mention “‘a right to sue,’” ibid., the statute’s 

use of the definite article “the” takes precedence. The Board 

and the dissent read §2401(a) as if it says “the complaint is 

filed within six years after a right of action [i.e., anyone’s

right of action] first accrues”—which, of course, it does not. 

In fact, we have explained that the traditional accrual

rule looks to when “the plaintiff ”—this particular plaintiff—“has a complete and present cause of action.” Green, 

578 U. S., at 554 (internal quotation marks omitted; emphasis added). No precedent suggests that the traditional

rule contemplates the Board’s hypothetical “when could 
Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 15 

Opinion of the Court 

someone else have sued” sort of inquiry.5 Rather, the “statute of limitations begins to run at the time the plaintiff has 

the right to apply to the court for relief.” TRW Inc., 534 

U. S., at 37 (opinion of Scalia, J.) (internal quotation marks

omitted; emphasis added).6 

Importing the Board’s special administrative-law rule 

into §2401(a) would create a defendant-focused rule for 

agency suits while retaining the traditional challengerspecific accrual rule for other suits against the United 

States. That would give the same statutory text—“right of 

action first accrues”—different meanings in different contexts, even though those words had a single, well-settled 

meaning when Congress enacted §2401(a). See Part III, supra. The Board’s interpretation would thereby decouple the

statute of limitations from any injury “such that the limitations period begins to run before a plaintiff can file a suit”—

for some, but not all, suits governed by §2401(a). Green, 578 

U. S., at 554. We “will not infer such an odd result in the 

—————— 5While the dissent attempts to cabin our precedent describing the 

plaintiff-specific standard accrual rule, nothing in those cases suggests 

that the rule is only plaintiff-specific for “plaintiff-specific causes of action.” Post, at 10; see, e.g., Gabelli v. SEC, 568 U. S. 442, 448 (2013) (The 

“ ‘standard rule’ ” that a “claim accrues ‘when the plaintiff has a complete

and present cause of action’ ” has “governed since the 1830s” and “appears in dictionaries from the 19th century up until today”). And regardless, the dissent’s assertion that “administrative-law claims” are not 

“plaintiff specific,” post, at 6, is mystifying given that an APA plaintiff 

cannot sue until she suffers an injury, see 5 U. S. C. §702; n. 1, supra. By

emphasizing the plaintiff-agnostic aspects of facial challenges to agency 

action, post, at 10, 16–18, the dissent conflates the defendant-focused 

substance of an APA claim with its plaintiff-specific cause of action. 6Moreover, there may be cases where no one is injured and able to sue 

at the time of final agency action—e.g., if the agency delays a rule’s enforcement—but the Board would still start the clock then. Cf. Toilet 

Goods Assn., Inc. v. Gardner, 387 U. S. 158, 162–166 (1967) (agency rule 

was final but challenge was not yet ripe). So the Board’s position cannot 

be reconciled even with a challenger-agnostic form of the traditional accrual rule, which at least would require that someone have a complete

and present cause of action before the limitations period begins. 
 

16 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS 

Opinion of the Court 

absence of any such indication in the text of the limitations 

period.” Ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted). 

B 

Turning to §2401(a)’s text, the Board draws significance

from this sentence: “The action of any person under legal 

disability or beyond the seas at the time the claim accrues 

may be commenced within three years after the disability

ceases.” This language, the Board stresses, “necessarily reflects Congress’s understanding that a claim can ‘accrue[]’ 

for purposes of Section 2401(a)” even when a person is unable to sue. Brief for Respondent 24. True enough. It is a 

mystery, however, why the Board finds this helpful. The 

tolling exception applies when the plaintiff had a complete

and present cause of action after he was injured but his legal disability or absence from the country “prevent[ed] him 

from bringing a timely suit.” Goewey v. United States, 222 

Ct. Cl. 104, 113, 612 F. 2d 539, 544 (1979) (per curiam).

What matters for accrual is when the plaintiff had “the 

right to apply to the court for relief,” not whether some external impediment prevented her from doing so. Wood 

§122a, at 684 (emphasis added). The exception, therefore, 

sheds no light on when the clock started ticking for Corner 

Post—but it does show Congress’s concern for plaintiffs who 

might lose a cause of action through no fault of their own. 

C 

The Board also leans on our precedent—namely, Reading 

Co. v. Koons, 271 U. S. 58 (1926), and Crown Coat Front Co. 

v. United States, 386 U. S. 503 (1967)—to support its unusual interpretation of “accrual.” See also post, at 6–9 

(JACKSON, J., dissenting). Again, the Board comes up 

empty.

In Koons, we interpreted the statute of limitations under

the Federal Employers’ Liability Act, which barred actions 
 

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 17 

Opinion of the Court 

brought more than two years after “‘the cause of action accrued.’” 271 U. S., at 60 (quoting ch. 149, §6, 35 Stat. 66). 

We held that the plaintiff ’s wrongful-death claim accrued

when the employee died, even though the estate’s administrator was not appointed until later and the administrator 

was “the only person authorized by the statute to maintain

the action.” 271 U. S., at 60. The Board interprets Koons 

to hold that a claim accrued at a time when no plaintiff

could sue. Thus, the Board reasons, it is consistent with the 

meaning of “accrue” to say that Corner Post’s claim “accrued” before it could sue. 

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 decedent.” Ibid. 

So “at the death of decedent, there are real parties in interest who may procure the action to be brought.” Id., at 62– 

63. While it is true that the claim accrued before any particular administrator was appointed, the beneficiaries on 

whose behalf any administrator would seek relief—the

“real parties in interest”—had the right to “procure the action” after the employee died. Given this unique context, 

Koons does not contradict the proposition that a claim generally accrues when the plaintiff has a complete and present cause of action. 

 Nor does Crown Coat. That case concerned a contract 

dispute in which a Government contractor sought an 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 
 

 

18 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS 

Opinion of the Court 

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 §2401(a)’s statute of limitations began to run when the Board issued its 

final determination or at an earlier date. Id., at 507. 

We held that the right of action first accrued when the

Board denied the contractor’s claim, because the contractor 

had “the right to resort to the courts only upon the making

of that administrative determination.” Id., at 512. We explained that §2401(a)’s phrase “right of action” refers to “the

right to file a civil action in the courts against the United

States.” Id., at 511. Given the contract’s administrativeexhaustion requirement, “the contractor’s claim was subject only to administrative, not judicial, determination in

the first instance”; the plaintiff was “not legally entitled to

ask the courts to adjudicate [its] claim as an original matter.” Id., at 511–512, 515. So its “claim or right to bring a

civil action against the United States” did not “matur[e]” 

until the Board made its final decision. Id., at 514. Crown 

Coat thus supports Corner Post: The Court interpreted

§2401(a) to embody the traditional rule that a claim accrues

when the plaintiff has the right to bring suit in court.

 Notwithstanding Crown Coat’s holding, the Board and 

the dissent try to marshal support from its dicta. The Court 

noted that it is hazardous “to 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”). 
Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 19 

Opinion of the Court 

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 

§2401(a). Rather, the Court made its observation in the 

course of distinguishing §2401(a) from a statutory scheme

that departed from the traditional accrual rule.7 386 U. S., 

at 516–517. Moreover, as we have already explained, the 

Court interpreted §2401(a)—the very statute at issue in 

this case—to start the clock when the plaintiff is “legally

entitled” to file suit. Id., at 515. It also specifically rejected 

the Government’s position that the time can run even before a plaintiff ’s “civil action against the United States matures.” Id., at 514; see also ibid. (noting that the Government’s position “would have unfortunate impact”). We 

therefore do not read Crown Coat’s “general purposes” language to contradict either its holding or the “‘standard rule’ 

for limitations periods.” Green, 578 U. S., at 554. 

 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-

—————— 7The Court distinguished the limitations scheme at issue in McMahon 

v. United States, 342 U. S. 25 (1951). That scheme involved two statutes: 

one requiring “actions to be brought within two years after ‘the cause of

action arises’ ” and another “permit[ting] court action only if the claim

ha[d] been administratively disallowed, but set[ting] no time within

which a claim must be presented to the administrative body.” Crown 

Coat, 386 U. S., at 516–517. The McMahon Court held that the claim 

accrued not after the administrative disallowance that would enable the 

plaintiff to sue in court, but at the time of the plaintiff ’s earlier injury. 

342 U. S., at 27. Crown Coat attributed this holding to the unique twostatute context: “[P]ostpon[ing] the usual time of accrual of the cause of 

action [i.e., the time of injury] until the date of disallowance” would have

“permit[ted] the claimant to postpone indefinitely the commencement of

the running of the statutory period.” 386 U. S., at 517; see McMahon, 

342 U. S., at 27. 
 

20 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS 

Opinion of the Court 

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., at 267, 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 §2401(a) or created a general statute of repose for agencies. It did not. 

That is enough to dispatch the Board’s policy arguments,

but we add that its concerns are overstated. Put aside 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 
 

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 21 

Opinion of the Court 

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 challenge.8 

Turning to the other side of the policy ledger, the Board

slights the arguments supporting the plaintiff-centric accrual rule. In addition to being compelled by §2401(a)’s

text, this rule vindicates the APA’s “basic presumption”

that anyone injured by agency action should have access to 

judicial review. Abbott Labs., 387 U. S., at 140. It also respects our “deep-rooted historic tradition that everyone 

—————— 8 It also may be that some injuries can only be suffered by entities that 

existed at the time of the challenged action. Corner Post suggests that

only parties that existed during the rulemaking process can claim to 

have been injured by a “procedural” shortcoming, like a deficient notice 

of proposed rulemaking. Reply Brief 18–19. We need not resolve that 

issue here because there is no dispute that Corner Post proffered an injury that does not depend on its having existed when the Board promulgated Regulation II: the rule’s alleged conflict with the Durbin Amendment. The dissent’s observation that “the claims in this case are 

procedural,” post, at 18, is confused. Even if some of Corner Post’s claims 

might be procedural, its central claim—that the regulation violates the 

statute—is a prototypical substantive challenge. 
 

 

22 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS 

Opinion of the Court 

should have his own day in court.” Richards v. Jefferson 

County, 517 U. S. 793, 798 (1996) (internal quotation marks

omitted). Under the Board’s finality rule, only those fortunate enough to suffer an injury within six years of a rule’s

promulgation may bring an APA suit. Everyone else—no 

matter how serious the injury or how illegal the rule—has 

no recourse.9 

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 §2401(a) spells the end of the United 

States as we know it. Perhaps the dissent believes that the 

Code of Federal Regulations is full of substantively illegal

regulations vulnerable to meritorious challenges; or perhaps it believes that meritless challenges will flood federal 

courts that are too incompetent to reject them. We have 

more confidence in both the Executive Branch and the Judiciary. But we do agree with the dissent on one point: 

“‘[T]he ball is in Congress’ court.’” Post, at 24 (quoting 

Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 550 U. S. 618, 661 

(2007) (Ginsburg, J., dissenting)). Section 2401(a) is 75 

years old. If it is a poor fit for modern APA litigation, the 

—————— 9Corner Post has no other way to obtain meaningful review of Regulation II. Because Regulation II does not directly regulate it, it will never

be subject to enforcement actions in which it may challenge the rule’s 

legality. See n. 2, supra. Nor is the ability to petition the Board for rulemaking to change Regulation II a sufficient substitute for de novo judicial review of its lawfulness: The agency’s “discretionary decision to decline to take new action” would be subject only to “deferential judicial 

review.” PDR Network, LLC v. Carlton & Harris Chiropractic, Inc., 588 

U. S. 1, 25 (2019) (KAVANAUGH, J., concurring in judgment). 
Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 23 

Opinion of the Court 

solution is for Congress to enact a distinct statute of limitations for the APA. 

* * * 

An APA claim does not accrue for purposes of §2401(a)’s 

6-year statute of limitations until the plaintiff is injured by

final agency action. Because Corner Post filed suit within 

six years of its injury, §2401(a) did not bar its challenge to

Regulation II. We reverse the Eighth Circuit’s judgment to

the contrary and remand the case for further proceedings

consistent with this opinion. 

It is so ordered. 
 

_________________ 

_________________ 

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 1 

KAVANAUGH, J., concurring 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

No. 22–1008 

CORNER POST, INC., PETITIONER v. BOARD 

OF GOVERNORS OF THE FEDERAL 

RESERVE SYSTEM 

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF 

APPEALS FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT 

[July 1, 2024]

 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

fees that banks may charge. But Corner Post is not a bank 

regulated by the rule. Rather, it is a business that must 

pay the fees charged by the banks who are regulated by the

rule. Corner Post complains that the agency rule allows

banks to charge fees that are unreasonably high. 

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 
 

 

2 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS 

KAVANAUGH, J., concurring 

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. 5 U. S. C. §706(2). The 

Federal Government and the federal courts have long

understood §706(2) to authorize vacatur of unlawful agency 

rules, including in suits by unregulated plaintiffs who are 

adversely affected by an agency’s regulation of others. 

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 action does not 

allow vacatur, but instead permits a court only to enjoin an 

agency from enforcing a rule against the plaintiff. 

If the Government were correct on that point, Corner Post

could not obtain any relief in this suit because, to reiterate,

Corner Post is not regulated by the rule to begin with. And 

the APA would supply no remedy for most other 

unregulated but adversely affected parties who 

traditionally have brought, and regularly still bring, APA

suits challenging agency rules.

The Government’s position would revolutionize longsettled 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. 
 

 

 

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 3 

KAVANAUGH, J., concurring 

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. 15 U. S. C. §1693o–2(a)(3)(A); see ante, at 2. 

Pursuant to the Act, the Board has issued a rule that sets a 

maximum fee of about 21 cents per transaction. 76 Fed. 

Reg. 43394, 43420 (2011). For convenience, I will refer to 

that rule as the fee rule. 

Corner Post is not subject to the fee rule. Corner Post 

does not charge interchange fees to its customers, and 

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. 5 U. S. C. §§702, 

704. In an APA suit, the district court “shall” “hold 

unlawful and set aside agency action” that is “arbitrary,

capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in

accordance with law.” §706(2)(A).

Corner Post 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 
 

 

4 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS 

KAVANAUGH, J., concurring 

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.

Corner Post instead needs a remedy that acts directly on

the fee rule—specifically, by vacating it. Indeed, without 

vacatur, it is hard to imagine what kind of lawsuit Corner 

Post could file. At oral argument, the Government 

ultimately seemed to acknowledge that reality and the 

necessity of the vacatur remedy if Corner Post is to obtain 

any relief in this case. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 76 (“it’s possible 

that the only way to provide this party relief would be 

vacatur”).1 

II 

For Corner Post to obtain relief, an important question 

therefore is whether the APA authorizes vacatur of 

unlawful agency actions, including agency rules.

The answer is yes—in light of the text and history of the 

—————— 1A plaintiff could not challenge the fee rule by suing to “compel agency 

action” that is “unlawfully withheld or unreasonably delayed.” 5 U. S. C. 

§706(1). The remedy of compelling agency action applies if an agency

fails to issue a required rule. But here, the Board issued a rule, and the 

question is whether the rule set a reasonable fee cap. It would therefore 

make little sense to say that the fee rule has been “withheld” or

“delayed.” Indeed, it seems that §706(1) has almost never been used to 

challenge extant agency rules, as opposed to challenging the absence of

required rules. 
Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 5 

KAVANAUGH, J., concurring 

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. 5 

U. S. C. §706(2)(A). When Congress enacted the APA in

1946, the phrase “set aside” meant “cancel, annul, or 

revoke.” Black’s Law Dictionary 1612 (3d ed. 1933); see also

Black’s Law Dictionary 1537 (4th ed. 1951) (same);

Bouvier’s Law Dictionary 1103 (W. Baldwin ed. 1926) (“To

annul; to make void; as, to set aside an award”). At that 

time, it was common for an appellate court that reversed 

the decision of a lower court to direct that the lower court’s 

“judgment” be “set aside,” meaning vacated. E.g., Shawkee 

Mfg. Co. v. Hartford-Empire Co., 322 U. S. 271, 274 (1944). 

Likewise, Congress used the phrase “set aside” in many 

pre-APA statutes that plainly contemplated the vacatur of 

agency actions.2 

The APA incorporated that common and 

contemporaneous meaning of “set aside.” When a federal 

court sets aside an agency action, the federal court vacates

that order—in much the same way that an appellate court 

vacates the judgment of a trial court. 

The APA prescribes the same “set aside” remedy for all 

categories of “agency action,” including agency adjudicative

orders and agency rules. §§551(13), 706(2). When a federal 

court concludes that an agency adjudicative order is 

—————— 2See, e.g., Hepburn Act of 1906, ch. 3591, §5, 34 Stat. 584, 592 (courts

could “enjoin, set aside, annul, or suspend any order or requirement of ” 

the Interstate Commerce Commission); Securities Exchange Act of 1934,

ch. 404, §25(a), 48 Stat. 881, 902 (authorizing courts “to affirm, modify,

and enforce or set aside [an] order” of the SEC); Federal Food, Drug, and 

Cosmetic Act of 1938, ch. 675, §701(f )(3), 52 Stat. 1040, 1055–1056 

(authorizing a court to “affirm the order” of the FDA, “or to set it aside 

in whole or in part, temporarily or permanently”). 
 

 

6 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS 

KAVANAUGH, J., concurring 

unlawful, the court must vacate that order. Around the 

time when Congress enacted the APA, the phrase “set

aside” the agency order meant vacate that order. See, e.g., 

United States v. L. A. Tucker Truck Lines, Inc., 344 U. S. 

33, 38 (1952). And because federal courts must “set aside” 

agency rules in the same way that they set aside agency

orders, successful challenges to agency rules must award 

the same remedy. See M. Sohoni, The Power To Vacate a 

Rule, 88 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 1121, 1131–1134 (2020). In 

short, to “set aside” a rule is to vacate it. 

Longstanding precedent reinforces the text. Over the 

decades, this Court has affirmed countless 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 
 

 

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 7 

KAVANAUGH, J., concurring 

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). 

The absence of vacatur would also create an asymmetry.

For example, without the vacatur remedy, a bank could still 

challenge the Board’s regulation of interchange fees in a 

suit for injunctive relief. The bank might argue that the fee 

cap is too low and that the Board should be enjoined from 

enforcing the cap against the bank—a result that would 

—————— 3Most of the recent academic and judicial discussion of this issue has

addressed suits by regulated parties. That discussion has largely missed 

a major piece of the issue—suits by unregulated but adversely affected 

parties. 
 

 

 

8 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS 

KAVANAUGH, J., concurring 

allow the bank to charge higher fees. But because Corner 

Post is not subject to the Board’s regulation, it could not 

contend that the fee cap is too high and that the Board 

should be enjoined from keeping the cap so high. So Corner 

Post would be precluded from suing even though the

allegedly unlawful regulation is causing it monetary

injury.4 

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 

—————— 4Absent vacatur, the remedy for a regulated plaintiff would not 

automatically extend to other regulated parties. For example, if a 

district court issued an injunction that prevents the Board from

enforcing the fee rule against one bank, the Board would still be able to

enforce the fee rule against other banks. For those other banks to obtain 

the same relief, they would need to either (i) file similar APA suits and

request similar injunctions or (ii) wait and see if the fee rule is 

temporarily enjoined or held unlawful by either the relevant court of

appeals or this Court. In that respect, eliminating the vacatur remedy 

would delay relief for many regulated parties. That said, in light of 

vertical stare decisis, the consequences for regulated parties of 

eliminating vacatur would not be as severe as the consequences for 

unregulated parties. See Labrador v. Poe, 601 U. S. ___, ___ (2024) 

(KAVANAUGH, J., concurring in grant of stay) (slip op., at 8–9); cf. W. 

Baude & S. Bray, Proper Parties, Proper Relief, 137 Harv. L. Rev. 153,

183 (2023) (when the Supreme Court “holds a statute to be 

unconstitutional or a rule to be unlawful, it may be as good as vacated”). 5This opinion focuses primarily on administrative litigation that arises

under the APA. But Congress has also enacted special statutory review

provisions that similarly authorize federal courts to “set aside” specific 

agency actions. See, e.g., 15 U. S. C. §78y(a) (orders of the SEC); 16 

U. S. C. §825l(b) (FERC); 28 U. S. C. §2342 (the FCC, the Atomic Energy

Commission, and other agencies). By arguing that the APA’s use of “set 

aside” does not authorize vacatur, the Government implies that vacatur

is also unavailable under those similar review provisions. 
 

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 9 

KAVANAUGH, J., concurring 

competitors. For example, in National Credit Union 

Administration v. First National Bank & Trust Co., several 

banks challenged the decision of a federal agency to approve

a series of amendments to the charter of a federal credit 

union, a competitor of the banks. 522 U. S. 479, 484–485 

(1998). The amendments were controversial because they 

expanded the markets in which the credit union could 

operate, thereby increasing competition against the banks.

The Court held that the banks could sue under the APA to 

challenge the agency’s approval of those charter 

amendments, and also that the 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 for federal grants, see, e.g., Sherley v. Sebelius, 

610 F. 3d 69 (CADC 2010); and a competitor’s exemption

from a generally applicable rule, see, e.g., Regular Common 

Carrier Conference v. United States, 793 F. 2d 376 (CADC 

1986) (arose under the review provision in 28 U. S. C. 

§2342). The Court has consistently held that the plaintiffs

incurring those injuries are “adversely affected or aggrieved

by agency action” within the meaning of the APA. 5 U. S. C. 

§702; see First Nat. Bank, 522 U. S., at 488, 499; Investment 

Company Institute v. Camp, 401 U. S. 617, 618–621 (1971); 

Association of Data Processing Service Organizations, Inc. 

v. Camp, 397 U. S. 150, 157 (1970). But such competitor

suits would be largely if not entirely eradicated if the APA 

and similar statutory review provisions did not authorize 

vacatur. 
 

10 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS 

KAVANAUGH, J., concurring 

Suits where one business challenges the underregulation 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. See id., at 40–44. The Court 

also concluded that the rescission of the safety standards

was arbitrary and capricious. See id., at 44–57. 

At no point in that landmark opinion on the judicial

review of agency actions did the Court state (or need to 

state) the obvious: Because the agency did not regulate the 

insurers themselves, the insurers could obtain relief from 

the 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 
Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 11 

KAVANAUGH, J., concurring 

against the developer, who is usually a private party. See 

§704 (authorizing review of “agency action”). Instead, the 

plaintiff typically sues the federal agency that approved the 

development and asks a federal court to vacate that

approval.

Some of those suits proceed under the APA; others

proceed under federal statutory review provisions that 

similarly authorize courts to “set aside” agency action. See, 

e.g., 15 U. S. C. §717r(b) (Natural Gas Act); 16 U. S. C. 

§825l(b) (Federal Power Act). Regardless, all of those suits

depend on the availability of vacatur.

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 rescind 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., 28 U. S. C. §2342(7) (railroad industry); 30 U. S. C. 

§816(a)(1) (mining industry). And the suits all depend on 

the availability of vacatur as a remedy. In particular, the 
 

 

12 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS 

KAVANAUGH, J., concurring 

workers may prevail in those suits only through vacatur of

the agency rules. So if “set aside” did not mean vacate, 

workplace safety rules could be challenged from only one 

direction—by employers who want less regulation, not by

workers who want more regulation. 

The examples of standard agency litigation that depend 

on the availability of vacatur are seemingly endless. 

Vacatur was essential when American workers challenged

a 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 

—————— 6 In some circumstances, usually when a court rules that an agency

must provide additional explanation for the challenged agency action or

must regulate some entity or activity more extensively, some courts have 

remanded to the agency without vacatur. Remand without vacatur is 

essentially a shorthand way of vacating a rule and staying the vacatur

pending the agency’s completion of an additional required action, such 

as providing additional explanation or issuing a new, more stringent 

rule. I do not address that practice here, which has been the subject of 

some debate. See Checkosky v. SEC, 23 F. 3d 452, 462–465 (CADC 1994)

(Silberman, J.) (explaining the practice); see also id., at 493, n. 37 

(Randolph, J.) (noting that courts and parties alternatively may avoid 

any “difficulties” associated with vacatur by “a stay of the mandate”). 

Importantly for present purposes, the view that vacatur is “authorized 

by the APA is a basic proposition shared by both sides of the debate over 

remand without vacatur.” M. Sohoni, The Power To Vacate a Rule, 88 

Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 1121, 1178 (2020). 
Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 13 

KAVANAUGH, J., concurring 

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 vacatur. Instead, 

the Government contends that plaintiffs harmed by agency 

rules must seek injunctions against enforcement of those 

rules. See Brief for United States in United States v. Texas, 

O. T. 2022, No. 22–58, pp. 40–44. One effect of the 

Government’s new position would be to insulate many 

agency rules from meaningful judicial review in suits by 

unregulated but adversely affected parties.

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, nationwide 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. 5 U. S. C. §706(2). “Unlike judicial review

of statutes, in which courts enter judgments and decrees

only against litigants, the APA” and related statutory 

review provisions “go further by empowering the judiciary 

to act directly against the challenged agency action.” J. 

Mitchell, The Writ-of-Erasure Fallacy, 104 Va. L. Rev. 933,

1012 (2018). The text of §706(2) directs federal courts to 

vacate agency actions in the same way that appellate courts 

vacate the judgments of trial courts. See M. Sohoni, The 
 

14 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS 

KAVANAUGH, J., concurring 

Power To Vacate a Rule, 88 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 1121, 1131– 

1134 (2020). The text of the APA therefore authorizes 

vacatur of agency rules. By contrast, Congress has rarely

authorized courts to act directly on federal statutes or to 

prohibit their enforcement against nonparties. As a result, 

background equitable principles may control in those nonAPA cases. 

Second, the Government argues that the remedies 

available in APA suits are not governed by §706(2), which

directs courts to “set aside” agency action, but instead are 

governed by §703. That argument is weak. Section 703 

determines the “form of proceeding” for suits under the APA 

and identifies the federal actors against whom an “action

for judicial review may be brought.”7 But “no court has ever 

held that Section 703 implicitly delimits the kinds of 

remedies available in an APA suit.” M. Sohoni, The Past 

and Future of Universal Vacatur, 133 Yale L. J. 2305, 2337 

(2024). For good reason: As explained above, the ordinary

meaning of “set aside” in §706(2) has long been understood 

to refer to the remedy of vacatur. The conclusion that §706 

governs remedies is also supported by §706(1), which

authorizes courts to “compel agency action unlawfully

withheld or unreasonably delayed”—unmistakably a 

remedy. By contrast, the text of §703 “speaks to venue and 

forms of proceedings, not to remedies, and regardless, its 

—————— 7Section 703 states: “The form of proceeding for judicial review is the 

special statutory review proceeding relevant to the subject matter in a 

court specified by statute or, in the absence or inadequacy thereof, any

applicable form of legal action, including actions for declaratory 

judgments or writs of prohibitory or mandatory injunction or habeas 

corpus, in a court of competent jurisdiction. If no special statutory review

proceeding is applicable, the action for judicial review may be brought 

against the United States, the agency by its official title, or the 

appropriate officer. Except to the extent that prior, adequate, and 

exclusive opportunity for judicial review is provided by law, agency 

action is subject to judicial review in civil or criminal proceedings for 

judicial enforcement.” 
 

 

 

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 15 

KAVANAUGH, J., concurring 

listing of the available forms of proceedings is 

nonexhaustive.” Sohoni, The Past and Future of Universal 

Vacatur, 133 Yale L. J., at 2337. 

To support its novel reliance on §703, the Government

suggests that the phrase “set aside” in §706(2) may refer to

a “rule of decision directing the reviewing court to disregard

unlawful” agency actions in “resolving the case before it,”

rather than the remedy of vacatur. Brief for United States 

in United States v. Texas, O. T. 2022, No. 22–58, at 40. But 

the leading cases and legal dictionaries at the time of the 

APA’s enactment did not use “set aside” in that manner. 

They instead referred to setting aside (that is, vacating)

judgments—a meaning entirely consistent with the APA’s

authorization to vacate agency actions. See supra, at 5. 

The Government’s position instead relies on some colloquial 

uses of the phrase “set aside” in federal constitutional 

challenges to state statutes. See, e.g., Brief for United 

States in United States v. Texas, O. T. 2022, No. 22–58, 

at 41 (citing Mallinckrodt Chemical Works v. Missouri ex 

rel. Jones, 238 U. S. 41, 54 (1915)); see also Mallinckrodt, 

238 U. S., at 54 (referring to “one who seeks to set aside a 

state statute as repugnant to the Federal Constitution”).

That is a thin basis for suddenly prohibiting entire

categories of long-common administrative litigation. 

Third, the Government seizes on legislative history to

argue that Congress did not expect the APA to create new 

remedies against unlawful agency actions. But vacatur was 

not a new remedy. On the contrary, several pre-APA

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 
 

 

 

16 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS 

KAVANAUGH, J., concurring 

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. §706(2). 

Moreover, although vacatur was not as common in the

years surrounding the APA’s enactment, there is a simple

explanation for that: Courts had few occasions to set aside 

agency rules before this Court’s 1967 decision in Abbott 

Laboratories v. Gardner, which significantly expanded the 

opportunities for facial, pre-enforcement review of agency

rules. 387 U. S. 136, 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 lawful rule. I appreciate that concern.

But federal law already gives the Government tools to 

mitigate those consequences—if not avoid them altogether.

When the Government believes that a district court has 

erroneously vacated a rule (or erroneously issued a 

preliminary injunction against a rule), the Government

may promptly seek a stay in the relevant federal court of 
Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 17 

KAVANAUGH, J., concurring 

appeals. To determine whether to grant a stay, the court of 

appeals may then promptly review the Government’s 

likelihood of success on the merits, among other factors. If 

the court of appeals denies a stay, the Government may

seek further review in this Court. See Labrador v. Poe, 601 

U. S. ___, ___ (2024) (KAVANAUGH, J., concurring in grant 

of stay) (slip op., at 2). The Government’s frustration with 

the occasional incorrect district court vacatur of an agency

rule is understandable. But especially given the readily

accessible and regularly utilized procedures for staying a 

district court’s vacatur,8 we should not overreact by entirely 

gutting vacatur as a remedy and thereby barring

unregulated but adversely affected parties from bringing 

APA suits. 

Not surprisingly, when asked at oral argument in this

case about the extraordinary consequences of its new novacatur 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 

—————— 8 If the problem became sufficiently severe, the Executive Branch could 

always ask Congress to limit the remedies available under the APA. 
 

 

18 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS 

KAVANAUGH, J., concurring 

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 remedy 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 available remedy under the APA, Corner Post

can obtain meaningful relief if it prevails in this lawsuit. 
 

_________________ 

_________________ 

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 1 

JACKSON, J., dissenting 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

No. 22–1008 

CORNER POST, INC., PETITIONER v. BOARD 

OF GOVERNORS OF THE FEDERAL 

RESERVE SYSTEM 

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF 

APPEALS FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT 

[July 1, 2024]

 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 28 U. S. C.

§2401(a) starts running when the rule is published. The 

Court says otherwise today, holding that the broad statutory term “accrues” requires us to conclude that the limitations period for Administrative Procedure Act (APA) claims

runs from the time of a plaintiff ’s injury. Never mind that 

this Court’s precedents tell us that the meaning of “accrues”

is context specific. Never mind that, in the administrativelaw context, limitations statutes uniformly run from the 
 

 

2 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS 

JACKSON, J., dissenting 

moment of agency action. Never mind that a plaintiff ’s injury is utterly irrelevant to a facial APA claim. According

to the Court, we must ignore all of this because, for other

kinds of claims, accrual begins at the time of a plaintiff ’s 

injury.

Next, the results. The Court’s baseless conclusion means 

that there is effectively no longer any limitations period for 

lawsuits that challenge agency regulations on their face. 

Allowing every new commercial entity to bring fresh facial 

challenges to long-existing regulations is profoundly 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 doing so, the Court 

wreaks havoc on Government agencies, businesses, and society at large. I respectfully dissent. 

I 

When a claim accrues depends on the nature of the claim.

See Crown Coat, 386 U. S., at 517. So, understanding the 

context in which these claims arose is essential to determining when Congress meant for them to accrue. The facts of 

this very case illustrate the absurdity of the majority’s onesize-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 15 U. S. C. §1693o–2(a)(1).

The Board did as Congress instructed. As relevant here, in 
 

 

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 3 

JACKSON, J., dissenting 

2011, the Board issued Regulation II, capping debit-card interchange fees at 21 cents per transaction plus 0.05 percent 

of the transaction. 76 Fed. Reg. 43420 (2011) (codified at 

12 CFR §253.3(b) (2022)).

As often happens, affected parties challenged Regulation II almost immediately after the Board issued it Several large trade groups sued under the APA, alleging that 

Regulation II was, in several respects, arbitrary, capricious, 

and not in accordance with law. NACS v. Board of Governors of FRS, 958 F. Supp. 2d 85, 95–96 (DC 2013). Ultimately, the D. C. Circuit rejected that challenge in relevant 

part. NACS v. Board of Governors of FRS, 746 F. 3d 474, 

477 (2014). And, a few months after that, we denied certiorari. See 574 U. S. 1121 (2015). 

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 §2401(a)’s 6-year statute 

of limitations. In response, the trade groups sought leave 

to amend. 

It was only then that Corner Post was added as a plaintiff. And, importantly, other than the addition of Corner 

Post, the trade groups’ complaint remained practically

identical to the untimely one they had filed before. Other 

than a few changes of phrasing and some newly available 
 

4 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS 

JACKSON, J., dissenting 

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 six years from when it was first affected by a 

—————— 1 If this case illustrates one type of gamesmanship, one does not need

to think hard to imagine other examples. A cash-only business that announces its intent to accept debit cards and thereby claiming injury from

the debit-card rule. New owners that buy out a shop, insisting that they

too are entitled to challenge the debit-card rule based on their status as

new entrants into the marketplace. It is telling that, even as the majority says that the moment of the plaintiff ’s injury marks the start of the 

limitations period for facial APA challenges, the majority fails to describe

precisely when that injury occurs in this context. 
 

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 5 

JACKSON, J., dissenting 

Government action to file a facial challenge.

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 §2401(a) 

demands this result. But if that answer is so obvious, one 

wonders why no court proclaimed it until more than 75

years after all the statutory pieces were in place. 

To explain how the majority got this ruling wrong, I find

it necessary to provide the right answer. Here, the relevant 

—————— 2The majority’s opinion says we took this case to resolve a circuit split,

suggesting that the Sixth Circuit had reached the contrary conclusion. 

See ante, at 3–4. It had not. In Herr v. United States Forest Serv., 803 

F. 3d 809 (2015), the Sixth Circuit addressed accrual in the context of an 

as-applied challenge after the Government had threatened enforcement. 

There, the Circuit pegged accrual to the moment of the injury allegedly

caused by application of the rule to the plaintiff, see id., at 820, and did 

not discuss whether that same accrual rule would apply to facial challenges. Since Herr, neither the Sixth Circuit nor any district court within 

it has extended Herr’s rule to facial challenges to final agency actions, 

and at least one District Court has expressly rejected such an extension.

See Linney’s Pizza, LLC v. Board of Governors of FRS, 2023 WL 6050569, 

*2–*4 (ED Ky., Sept. 15, 2023). 
 

 

6 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS 

JACKSON, J., dissenting 

statutory text is the catchall limitations provision for suits

brought against the United States: §2401(a) of Title 28 of 

the United States Code. All agree that there are two key

terms in that provision—“accrues” and “the right of action.” 

Ibid. The majority misreads both. Contrary to the Court’s 

rigid reading, the word “accrues” lacks any fixed meaning. 

See Crown Coat, 386 U. S., at 517. Instead, the meaning of

accrue for the purpose of a statute of limitations is determined by the particular “right of action” at issue. For many

kinds of legal claims, accrual is plaintiff specific because the 

claims themselves are plaintiff specific. But facial administrative-law claims are not. This means that, in the administrative-law context, the limitations period begins not

when a plaintiff is injured, but when a rule is finalized. 

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 accrues.” 28

U. S. C. §2401(b). By contrast, a party challenging certain

administrative orders must seek review “within 60 days after [the order’s] entry.” §2344. Many more examples of context-specific limitations periods in the U. S. Code abound. 

See, e.g., §2501 (claims over which the United States Court 

of Federal Claims has jurisdiction must be brought within 

six years); 33 U. S. C. §1369(b)(1) (challenges to certain 

standards adopted by the Environmental Protection 

Agency under the Clean Water Act must commence “within 

120 days from the date of . . . promulgation”). 
Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 7 

JACKSON, J., dissenting 

The statute at issue here—28 U. S. C. §2401(a)—supplements those specific provisions. In doing so, §2401(a) serves

a special purpose: to act as a catchall that imposes an outer

time limit on claims brought against the United States

when no other statute of limitations applies. Under 

§2401(a), “every civil action commenced against the United

States shall be barred unless the complaint is filed within

six years after the right of action first accrues.” This 

catchall limitations statute has been applied in a range of 

contexts, including APA claims (like this one), contract

claims, see Crown Coat, 386 U. S., at 510–511, and more, 

see, e.g., Natural Resources Defense Council v. Haaland, 

102 F. 4th 1045, 1074 (CA9 2024) (claims under the Endangered Species Act).

Consistent with the broad scope of its potential application, §2401(a) uses broad language. It starts the 6-year 

clock when “the right of action first accrues.” §2401(a). No 

more elaboration or specificity is given. So, what does the 

sparse text of §2401(a) tell us? 

To start, the statute tells us to look at when “the right of

action first accrues.” (Emphasis added.) The word “first” 

directs us to start the 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 §2401(a) itself. Put another way, the §2401(a)

catchall applies to different causes of action, and those 

causes of action establish different legal claims. Though the 

right of action is not the same for an APA claim as it is for

an Endangered Species Act claim, §2401(a)’s broad “right of 

action” language applies to both of these claims, and more. 
 

8 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS 

JACKSON, J., dissenting 

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 But even the majority

acknowledges that its preferred definition of accrual is not 

universal; it is, at most, “the ‘standard rule’” that “can be 

displaced.” Ante, at 8 (quoting Green v. Brennan, 578 U. S. 

547, 554 (2016); emphasis added).

Far from imposing a one-size-fits-all definition of the 

word “accrue,” this Court has traditionally taken a claimspecific 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 

—————— 3The majority insists on a single definition of “accrued,” but it cannot

keep its story straight as to what that definition is. Its opinion offers 

multiple formulations, stating that a claim accrues “when it comes into 

existence,” “when the plaintiff has a complete and present cause of action,” “when a suit may be maintained thereon,” and, also, “after the

plaintiff suffers the injury.” Ante, at 7–8 (internal quotation marks omitted). These distinctions can make a difference. 
 

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 9 

JACKSON, J., dissenting 

Coat, we held the opposite—a claim brought under 28

U. S. C. §1346 did not accrue at the time of injury, but rather at the moment of final administrative action, because 

a plaintiff could not sue until the agency action was final. 

See 386 U. S., at 513–514, 517–518. The point is not that 

these cases all point in one direction or the other with respect to the meaning of accrue. Instead, our cases illustrate 

what this Court has expressly stated: The term “accrued” 

lacks “any definite technical meaning,” Reading, 271 U. S., 

at 61. 

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 §2401(a) says. It does not say 

that the clock starts when the plaintiff ’s right of action first

accrues; rather, §2401(a) starts the clock when “the right of 

action first accrues.” (Emphasis added.) In other words, 

the limitations provision here focuses on the claim being 

brought without regard for who brings it. 

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 §2401(a) itself,

these definitions do not support the majority’s assertion

that accrual is necessarily plaintiff specific. 

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 
 

10 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS 

JACKSON, J., dissenting 

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 Commission); Wallace, 549 U. S., at 388 (false

imprisonment and arrest claims); Graham County, 545 

U. S., at 412 (retaliation claim against an employer); Bay 

Area Laundry, 522 U. S., at 195 (claim alleging failure to 

make required payments to employee pension funds). 

Here is what I mean by this. When a complaint brought 

against a defendant asserts, “You falsely imprisoned me,”

or “You retaliated against me,” it is making a legal claim 

that is 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.” 
 

 

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 11 

JACKSON, J., dissenting 

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, 

—————— 4Here, these purposes are at odds because repose favors starting the 

clock at the moment of final agency action, whereas a plaintiff-specific

limitations rule would be targeted at a plaintiff’s injury to ensure plaintiffs don’t sleep on their rights. In the administrative-law context, one 

has to choose between those objectives; no one rule can equally achieve 

both of these ends. 
 

12 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS 

JACKSON, J., dissenting 

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 §2401(a), we 

must understand what the right of action is. 

A 

The right of action that is invoked in many administrative-law cases, including this one, is a statutory claim that 

an agency has violated certain legal requirements when it

took a certain action, such that the agency’s action itself is

invalid. See, e.g., 5 U. S. C. §706(2). And Congress has repeatedly made clear, through various statutory enactments, that in the administrative-law context, the statute 

of limitations for filing a claim that seeks to invalidate the 

agency action runs from the moment of final agency action.

Take the Administrative Orders Review Act (also known

as the Hobbs Act), for example. See 28 U. S. C. §2342. That 

statute is the exclusive mechanism for reviewing certain orders issued by over a half-dozen federal agencies. The Act 

requires suits to be brought “within 60 days after [the] entry” of any final agency order. §2344. There are many other

similar statutes. In its brief, the Government provided us

with more than two dozen statutory provisions where the 

limitations period starts running at the moment of final

agency action—whether that action is the publication of a 

rule, or the issuance of an order, or something else. See 

Brief for Respondent 15–17, and n. 4. And, as the Government itself acknowledges, even that list is not comprehensive. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 51 (“Candidly, we got to a pagelong footnote and stopped”).5 

—————— 5No kidding. On top of the dozens of examples that the Government

provided, there are many, many others. See, e.g., 5 U. S. C. 

§7703(b)(1)(A) (“[A] petition to review a final order or final decision of the

[Merit Systems Protection] Board shall be filed . . . within 60 days after 

the Board issues notice of the final order or decision of the Board”); 15 

U. S. C. §80b–13(a) (“Any person or party aggrieved by an order issued 

by the [Securities and Exchange] Commission under this subchapter 
 

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 13 

JACKSON, J., dissenting 

Despite the dozens of statutes that start the limitations 

period at the moment of final agency action, neither Corner 

Post nor the majority identifies a single statute in the administrative-law context—either now or before 1948—that 

takes any other approach. This tells us exactly the message 

that Congress might have expected courts to infer when interpreting §2401(a): For administrative-law actions, a 

claim accrues at the moment of final agency action. 

The Court says we must ignore these other statutes because they post-date Congress’s 1948 enactment of 

§2401(a). See ante, at 12–14. The majority’s reasoning is 

doubly wrong. First, it is wrong on the facts. Even before 

1948, Congress consistently started limitations periods in

the administrative-law context at the moment of the last 

—————— 

may obtain a review of such order . . . by filing . . . within sixty days after 

the entry of such order, a written petition”); 30 U. S. C. §1276(a)(2) (“Any

[covered] order or decision . . . shall be subject to judicial review on or 

before 30 days from the date of such order or decision”); 38 U. S. C. 

§7266(a) (“[T]o obtain review . . . of a final decision of the Board of Veterans’ Appeals, a person adversely affected by such decision shall file a 

notice of appeal with the Court within 120 days after the date on which 

notice of the decision is issued”); 42 U. S. C. §405(g) (“Any individual,

after any final decision of the Commissioner of Social Security made after 

a hearing to which he was a party . . . may obtain a review of such decision by a civil action commenced within sixty days after the mailing to

him of notice of such decision”); §1395oo(f )(1) (“Providers shall have the

right to obtain judicial review of any final decision of the [Provider Reimbursement Review] Board . . . by a civil action commenced within 60 

days of the date on which notice of any final decision by the Board . . . is 

received”); §7607(b)(1) (“Any petition for review under this subsection 

shall be filed within sixty days from the date notice of such promulgation,

approval, or action appears in the Federal Register, except that if such 

petition is based solely on grounds arising after such sixtieth day, then 

any petition for review under this subsection shall be filed within sixty

days after such grounds arise”); 49 U. S. C. §1153(b)(1) (petitions seeking

review of National Transportation Safety Board orders that relate to aviation matters “must be filed not later than 60 days after the order is 

issued”). 
 

14 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS 

JACKSON, J., dissenting 

agency action.6 Then, as now, Congress decided that the 

deadline for reviewing agency actions should be pegged to 

the action under review. Second, the majority misses the 

broader point: Whenever Congress imposes a deadline to 

challenge an agency decision, the limitations period always 

starts at the moment of the last agency action. We should 

pay attention to the uniformly expressed judgment of Congress, and read §2401(a) accordingly. 

Somehow, the majority draws the opposite conclusion. In 

its view, either Congress’s consistently expressed intention 

is irrelevant to what §2401(a) means, or Congress’s failure 

to explicitly express that intention in the text of §2401(a) 

indicates that Congress decided otherwise in this particular 

statute (after all, Congress could have expressly pegged accrual to final agency action in §2401(a) but did not do so). 

See ante, at 8–10. 7 But mechanically drawing these sorts 

—————— 6See, e.g., 42 Stat. 162 (1921) (codified at 7 U. S. C. §194(a)) (meatpackers must appeal agency orders within 30 days after service of order);

48 Stat. 1093 (1934) (codified as amended at 47 U. S. C. §402(c)) (Federal 

Communications Commission orders must be challenged in court “within 

twenty days after the decision complained of is effective”); 49 Stat. 860 

(1935) (codified at 16 U. S. C. §825l(b)) (orders issued by the Federal 

Power Commission pursuant to the Public Utility Act of 1935 must be

challenged in court “within sixty days after the order of the Commission”); 49 Stat. 980 (1935) (codified at 27 U. S. C. §204(h)) (orders related 

to alcohol permits must be challenged “within sixty days after the entry

of such order”); 52 Stat. 112 (1938) (codified at 15 U. S. C. §45) (Federal 

Trade Commission cease-and-desist orders must be challenged “within 

sixty days from the date of the service of such order”); 52 Stat. 831 (1938)

(codified at 15 U. S. C. §717r(b)) (orders issued by the Federal Power

Commission pursuant to the Natural Gas Act must be challenged in 

court “within sixty days after the order of the Commission”); 52 Stat.

1053 (1938) (codified at 21 U. S. C. §355(h)) (orders related to new drug

applications must be challenged in court “within sixty days after the entry of such order”); 54 Stat. 501 (1940) (orders apportioning costs for certain bridge projects must be challenged in court “within three months

after the date such order is issued”). 7The majority criticizes my review of congressional action in this area,

but fails to adequately explore the record itself. Ante, at 12–14. The 
 

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 15 

JACKSON, J., dissenting 

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 §2401(a) is a catchall 

provision that applies to a variety of actions—that is, the

language we are interpreting here does not apply only in 

the administrative-law context. It applies to every suit 

against the United States not covered by another statute of 

limitations. One cannot expect for Congress to have explicitly stated that accrual in §2401(a) starts at the point of final agency action when §2401(a) is a residual provision that 

also applies to claims that do not involve agency action at

all.8 

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 plaintiffspecific 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 §2401(a)—it did not have 

to, for those who have a basic understanding of its statutes.

What is more, the standard accrual rule for the administrative-law context makes perfect sense. The APA itself focuses on the agency’s action, not on the plaintiff. Section 

704 subjects certain “agency action[s]” to judicial review. 

—————— 

majority’s conclusion that the accrual rule is plaintiff specific for APA 

claims is no more than ipse dixit. 8Contra the majority, see ante, at 12, the fact that Congress could have 

opted to enact a specific statutory review provision for APA claims says

nothing about how we should apply the catchall review provision here. 
 

 

 

16 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS 

JACKSON, J., dissenting 

Section 706 lays out the scope of judicial review. As relevant here, courts shall “hold unlawful and set aside agency 

action” that is “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion,

or otherwise not in accordance with law.” 5 U. S. C. 

§706(2)(A). Other subsections of §706 likewise focus exclusively on what the agency did. Did the agency act “in excess 

of statutory jurisdiction”? §706(2)(C). Did the agency act 

“without observance of procedure required by law”? 

§706(2)(D).

Section 702 is not to the contrary. The majority suggests

otherwise, characterizing §702 as “equip[ping] injured parties with a cause of action.” Ante, at 5. This is a misleading 

characterization. Section 702 restricts who may challenge

agency action: only those “person[s] suffering legal wrong 

because of agency action, or adversely affected or aggrieved 

by agency action.” It is simply a limitation on who can sue. 

As such, it says nothing about the cause of action that such

a person might bring, nor does it establish that an injury is 

an element of the claim, as the majority mistakenly suggests.9 And that is for good reason, since, in administrative 

—————— 9The majority puts too much stock in the fact that §702 references an 

injury: That reference actually does no more than highlight the distinction between what constitutes a claim and who can bring that claim. See 

ante, at 4–5, and n. 1. This type of distinction is commonplace in many 

areas of our jurisprudence. Take, for example, the constitutional standing doctrine, which limits eligible plaintiffs to those who have suffered 

an injury in fact that is both traceable to the defendant’s conduct and 

redressable in court. See FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, 602 

U. S. 367, 380–385 (2024). Whether a particular plaintiff has standing

to sue says nothing about the elements of the claim itself. See Haaland 

v. Brackeen, 599 U. S. 255, 291 (2023) (“We do not reach the merits of 

these claims because no party before the Court has standing to raise 

them”). The distinction between what a claim is and who can bring it 

applies with full force here. Section 702 codifies an injury requirement 

for bringing APA claims. Whether a particular plaintiff was “adversely

affected or aggrieved by agency action within the meaning of a relevant

statute” under §702 is a threshold inquiry about whether she is an appropriate plaintiff; it has no bearing on whether the agency did, in fact, 
Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 17 

JACKSON, J., dissenting 

actions, the claim itself remains focused on the agency. See 

Crown Coat, 386 U. S., at 513 (“The focus of the court action

is the validity of the administrative decision”). 

The way that courts review agency actions also reinforces

this basic observation. Courts do not look at what happened to the plaintiff or what happened after the rulemaking—they look only at the rule and the rulemaking process

itself. See SEC v. Chenery Corp., 318 U. S. 80, 95 (1943). 

“[T]he focal point for judicial review should be the administrative record already in existence, not some new record

made initially in the reviewing court.” Camp v. Pitts, 411 

U. S. 138, 142 (1973) (per curiam). Anything that happened 

after the rule’s publication (including, perhaps, some injury 

to a regulated party) does not matter to an APA claim. So, 

the available claims, causes of action, and evidence are the 

same regardless of who brings the challenge or when they

bring it.

Again, the complaint in this case proves the point. Before 

Corner Post was added as a plaintiff, the complaint alleged 

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-

—————— 

act in a manner that was “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, 

or otherwise not in accordance with law,” §706(2). 
 

18 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS 

JACKSON, J., dissenting 

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 linedrawing 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 §2401(a). 

Congress enacts statutes of limitations to achieve basic policy goals: “repose, elimination of stale claims, and certainty 

about a plaintiff ’s opportunity for recovery and a defendant’s potential liabilities.” Rotella v. Wood, 528 U. S. 549, 

555 (2000); see also Gabelli, 568 U. S., at 448. For APA 

claims, where rulemakings apply to the public writ large, 

repose and certainty would never exist if any and every

newly formed entity can challenge every agency regulation 

in existence. Stated simply, the majority has adopted an

implausible reading of §2401(a), because, as I explain below, a plaintiff-specific accrual rule operating in this context undermines each of the central goals of all limitations 
 

 

 

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 19 

JACKSON, J., dissenting 

provisions.

First, repose. This principle means that, at some point, 

litigation must end. Under the majority’s reading of the 

statute, it never will. Instead of putting a stop to things

after six years, §2401(a) now does nothing to prevent 

agency rules from being forever subjected to legal challenge 

by newly formed entities (or, as this case illustrates, by old 

entities that can find or create new entities to graft onto

their complaint).10 

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. 

—————— 10The fact that “courts entertaining later challenges often will be able 

to rely on binding Supreme Court or circuit precedent,” ante, at 21, is 

irrelevant. What we are deciding now is how the statute of limitations 

should be interpreted, and more specifically, whether it makes sense to 

interpret it in a way that is inconsistent with the purpose of such statutes. 
 

20 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS 

JACKSON, J., dissenting 

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 decadesold agency decisions fair game, even though courts of appeals had previously applied §2401(a) to find untimely a

range of belated APA challenges. For example, a lower

court rejected an APA challenge to the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the abortion medication mifepristone that was brought more than two decades after the

relevant agency action. See Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA, 78 F. 4th 210, 242 (CA5 2023). A 2008 APA 

challenge to a 1969 ruling by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives implementing the Gun 

Control Act was also bounced on statute of limitations 

grounds. See Hire Order Ltd. v. Marianos, 698 F. 3d 168, 

170 (CA4 2012). Other unquestionably tardy APA suits

have been dismissed on similar grounds too.11 

No more. After today, even the most well-settled agency 

—————— 11See, e.g., Alabama v. PCI Gaming Auth., 801 F. 3d 1278, 1292 (CA11

2015) (2013 challenge to Secretary of Interior’s 1984, 1992, and 1995 decisions to take certain land into trust for tribes); Wong v. Doar, 571 F. 3d 

247, 263 (CA2 2009) (2007 challenge to 1980 Medicaid regulation); DunnMcCampbell Royalty Interest, Inc. v. National Park Serv., 112 F. 3d 1283, 

1286–1287 (CA5 1997) (1994 challenge to 1979 National Park Service 

regulations); Shiny Rock Mining Corp. v. United States, 906 F. 2d 1362, 

1365–1366 (CA9 1990) (1984 challenges to 1964 and 1965 land management orders). 
 

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 21 

JACKSON, J., dissenting 

regulations can be placed on the chopping block. And 

please take note: The fallout will not stop with new challenges to old rules involving the most contentious issues of 

today. Any established government regulation about any

issue—say, workplace safety, toxic waste, or consumer protection—can now be attacked by any new regulated entity

within six years of the entity’s formation. A brand new entity could pop up and challenge a regulation that is decades 

old; perhaps even one that is as old as the APA itself. No 

matter how entrenched, heavily relied upon, or central to 

the functioning of our society a rule is, the majority has announced open season.

Still, in issuing its ruling in this case, the Court seems

oddly oblivious to the most foreseeable consequence of the

accrual rule it is adopting: Giving every new entity in a 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 
 

22 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS 

JACKSON, J., dissenting 

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 concerns, the constant churn of potential 

attacks on an agency’s rules by new entrants can harm all 

entities in a regulated industry. At any time, anyone can 

come along and potentially cause every entity to have to 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.

Seeking to minimize the fully foreseeable and potentially 

devastating impact of its ruling, the majority maintains 

that there is nothing to see here, because not every lawsuit 

brought by a new industry upstart will win, and, at any

rate, many agency regulations are already subject to challenge. See ante, at 21. But this myopic rationalization overlooks other significant changes that this Court has wrought 

this Term with respect to the longstanding rules governing 

review of agency actions. The discerning reader will know

that the Court has handed down other decisions this Term 
 

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 23 

JACKSON, J., dissenting 

that likewise invite and enable a wave of regulatory challenges—decisions that carry with them the possibility that 

well-established agency rules will be upended in ways that 

were previously unimaginable. Doctrines that were once 

settled are now unsettled, and claims that lacked merit a 

year ago are suddenly up for grabs. 

In Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, 603 U. S. ___ 

(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 brought 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 
24 CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS 

 

JACKSON, J., dissenting 

vested them with authority to set the ground rules for the 

individuals and entities that participate in our economy 

and our society. It is utterly inconceivable that §2401(a)’s 

statute of limitations was meant to permit fresh attacks on 

settled regulations from all new comers forever. Yet, that 

is what the majority holds today. 

 But Congress still has a chance to address this absurdity 

and forestall the coming chaos. It can opt to correct this 

Court’s mistake by clarifying that the statutes it enacts are 

designed to facilitate the functioning of agencies, not to hobble them. In particular, Congress can amend §2401(a), or 

enact a specific review provision for APA claims, to state 

explicitly what any such rule must mean if it is to operate 

as a limitations period in this context: Regulated entities 

have six years from the date of the agency action to bring a 

lawsuit seeking to have it changed or invalidated; after 

that, facial challenges must end. By doing this, Congress 

can make clear that lawsuits bringing facial claims against 

agencies are not personal attack vehicles for new entities 

created just for that purpose. So, while the Court has made 

a mess of this pivotal statute, and the consequences are profound, “the ball is in Congress’ court.” Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 550 U. S. 618, 661 (2007) (Ginsburg, J., dissenting).