Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-1008_1b82.pdf
Page Number: 11.0

6 

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

Opinion of the Court 

is necessary for the suit but irrelevant to the statute of lim-
itations.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 en-
acted the APA.  See 62 Stat. 971.  Section 2401(a)’s prede-
cessor was the statute-of-limitations provision for the Little
Tucker Act, which gave district courts jurisdiction over non-
tort  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 Ju-
dicial Code in 1948, it converted the Little Tucker Act’s stat-
ute of limitations into a general statute of limitations for all 

—————— 

2 The Board leaves open the possibility that someone could bring an as-
applied challenge to a rule when the agency relies on that rule in enforce-
ment 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 chal-
lenge that rule.  JUSTICE KAVANAUGH asserts that “Corner Post can ob-
tain relief in this case only because the APA authorizes vacatur of agency 
rules.”  Post, at 1 (concurring opinion).  Whether the APA authorizes va-
catur 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.