Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-1164_7li8.pdf
Page Number: 20

Cite as:  598 U. S. ____ (2023) 

5 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

The majority suggests that Irwin stands for the proposi-
tion  that  a  condition  on  a  waiver  of  sovereign  immunity 
must be strictly construed, but then goes on to argue that it
is not necessarily jurisdictional.  Ante, at 8.  However, our 
decision in United States v. Williams, 514 U. S. 527 (1995), 
decided five years after Irwin, demonstrates that statutes 
of limitations in suits brought against the United States are 
no less jurisdictional now than they were before Irwin.  In 
Williams, the Court cited Dalm’s holding that failure to file 
a  claim  against  the  Government  for  a  federal  tax  refund
within the statute-of-limitations period operates as a juris-
dictional bar to suit, and the Court reaffirmed that a stat-
ute  of  limitations  “narrow[s]  the  waiver  of  sovereign  im-
munity.”  514 U. S., at 534, n. 7 (citing 494 U. S., at 602).1 
Irwin, thus, does not disrupt this Court’s long held under-
standing that conditions on waivers of sovereign immunity 
are presumptively jurisdictional. 

II 
Regardless of whether conditions on waivers of sovereign
immunity  remain  jurisdictional  post-Irwin,  we  have  said 
that, where the Court has offered a “definitive earlier inter-
pretation” of a statutory time bar as jurisdictional, we will
continue to treat it as jurisdictional unless and until Con-
gress  directs  otherwise.    John  R.  Sand  &  Gravel  Co.  v. 
United  States,  552  U. S.  130,  137–138  (2008);  see  also 
United States v. Kwai Fun Wong, 575 U. S. 402, 416 (2015) 

—————— 

1 I have previously noted that Irwin “does perhaps narrow the scope of 
the sovereign immunity canon.”  Scarborough v. Principi, 541 U. S. 401, 
426 (2004) (dissenting opinion).  But, it “does so only in limited circum-
stances,” such as “where the Government is made subject to suit to the
same extent and in the same manner as private parties are.”  Ibid. (em-
phasis added).  This is not one of those circumstances.  The Quiet Title 
Act’s  framework  exclusively  governs  actions  to  quiet  title  against  the 
United States.  And, it includes a number of conditions favorable to the 
Federal Government that would not apply in traditional quiet title ac-
tions among private litigants.