Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-1164_7li8.pdf
Page Number: 7

4 

WILKINS v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of the Court 

alters the normal operation of our adversarial system.”  Id., 
at 434.  “For purposes of efficiency and fairness, our legal 
system is replete with rules” like forfeiture, which require 
parties to raise arguments themselves and to do so at cer-
tain  times.  Ibid.  Jurisdictional  bars,  however,  “may  be 
raised at any time” and courts have a duty to consider them 
sua sponte.  Ibid.  When such eleventh-hour jurisdictional
objections prevail post-trial or on appeal, “many months of
work  on  the  part  of  the  attorneys  and  the  court  may  be 
wasted.”  Id., at 435.  Similarly, doctrines like waiver and
estoppel ensure efficiency and fairness by precluding par-
ties from raising arguments they had previously disavowed. 
Because these doctrines do not apply to jurisdictional objec-
tions, parties can disclaim such an objection, only to resur-
rect it when things go poorly for them on the merits.  Ibid. 
Given this risk of disruption and waste that accompanies
the  jurisdictional  label,  courts  will  not  lightly  apply  it  to
procedures  Congress  enacted  to  keep  things  running
smoothly and efficiently.  Courts will also not assume that 
in  creating  a  mundane  claims-processing  rule,  Congress
made it “unique in our adversarial system” by allowing par-
ties to raise it at any time and requiring courts to consider 
it sua sponte.  Sebelius v. Auburn Regional Medical Center, 
568 U. S. 145, 153 (2013).  Instead, “traditional tools of stat-
utory construction must plainly show that Congress imbued
a procedural bar with jurisdictional consequences.”  United 
States v. Kwai Fun Wong, 575 U. S. 402, 410 (2015).

Under this clear statement rule, the analysis of §2409a(g) 
is  straightforward.3   “[I]n  applying  th[e]  clear  statement 

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3 The dissent maintains that this Court’s settled clear statement rule 
does not apply here because §2409a(g) is a condition on a waiver of sov-
ereign immunity and “as such, this Court should interpret it as a juris-
dictional bar to suit.”  Post, at 2 (opinion of THOMAS, J.).  Over three dec-
ades ago, this Court in “Irwin . . . foreclose[d] th[e] argument” that “time
limits” are jurisdictional simply because they “function as conditions on