Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/558bv.pdf
Page Number: 242

Cite as: 558 U. S. 67 (2009) 

81 

Opinion of the Court 

no  warrant  to  answer  a  question  that  may  be  consequential 
in  another  case:  Absent  grounds  speciﬁed  in  § 153  First 
(q)  for  vacating  a  Board  order,  may  a  reviewing  court  set 
aside  an  NRAB  adjudication  for  incompatibility  with  due 
process?  An  answer  to  that  question  must  await  a  case  in 
which  the  issue  is  genuinely  in  controversy.7  In  this  case, 
however, our grant of certiorari enables us to address a mat­
ter  of  some  importance:  We  can  reduce  confusion,  clouding 
court  as  well  as  Board  decisions,  over  matters  properly 
typed “jurisdictional.” 

III
 
A
 

Recognizing  that  the  word  “jurisdiction”  has  been  used 
by  courts,  including  this  Court,  to  convey  “many,  too  many, 
meanings,” Steel Co. v.  Citizens for Better Environment, 523 
U. S.  83,  90  (1998)  (internal  quotation  marks  omitted),  we 
have cautioned, in recent decisions,  against proﬂigate use of 
the  term.  Not  all  mandatory  “prescriptions,  however  em­
phatic,  are  .  .  .  properly  typed  jurisdictional,”  we  explained 
in Arbaugh  v.  Y & H Corp.,  546  U. S.  500,  510  (2006)  (inter­
nal  quotation  marks  omitted).  Subject-matter  jurisdiction 
properly  comprehended,  we  emphasized,  refers  to  a  tribu­
nal’s  “power  to  hear  a  case,”  a  matter  that  “can  never  be 
forfeited  or  waived.”  Id.,  at  514  (quoting  United  States  v. 
Cotton,  535  U. S.  625,  630  (2002)).  In  contrast,  a  “claim­
processing rule, . . . even  if unalterable on a party’s applica­
tion,” does not reduce the adjudicatory domain of a tribunal 
and  is  ordinarily  “forfeited  if  the  party  asserting  the  rule 

7 A  case  of  that  order  would  be  uncommon.  As  the  Carrier  acknowl­
edges,  “many  of  the  cases  reviewing  ostensibly  extra-statutory  due  proc­
ess objections could have been accommodated within the statutory frame­
work.”  Brief  for  Petitioner  36.  See  also  id.,  at  37  (“The  statutory 
review provisions are plainly generous enough to permit litigants to raise 
all of the simple, common, easily adjudicated, and likely to be meritorious 
claims that sail under the ﬂag of due process of law . . . .”).