Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-1008_1b82.pdf
Page Number: 14

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 Administra-
tive 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 lan-
guage.

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 cul-
pable  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 lim-
itations “require plaintiffs to pursue diligent prosecution of 
known claims”; statutes of repose reflect a “legislative judg-
ment that a defendant should be free from liability after the