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Page Number: 4

4 

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

Syllabus 

not establish a background presumption that the limitations period for 
facial challenges to agency rules begins when the rule is final.  Given 
the settled, plaintiff-centric meaning of “right of action first accrues” 
in 1948—not to mention in the Little Tucker Act before it—the Board 
cannot “displace” this “standard rule” for limitations periods.  Green, 
578 U. S., at 554. 

While the Board argues that §2401(a) should not be interpreted to 
adopt  a  “challenger-by-challenger”  approach,  the  standard  accrual 
rule  that  §2401(a)  exemplifies  is  plaintiff  specific.  The  Board  reads 
§2401(a)  as  if  it  says  “the  complaint  is  filed  within  six  years  after  a 
right  of  action  [i.e.,  anyone’s  right  of  action]  first  accrues”—which  it 
does  not  say.    Rather,  §2401(a)’s  text  focuses  on  when  the  specific
plaintiff had the right to sue: It says “the complaint is filed within six 
years after the right of action first accrues.”  (Emphasis added).  And 
the Court has explained that the traditional accrual rule looks to when 
the  plaintiff—this  particular  plaintiff—has  a  complete  and  present 
cause of action.  See Green, 578 U. S., at 554.  No precedent supports 
the Board’s hypothetical “when could someone else have sued” sort of 
inquiry.

Importing the Board’s special administrative-law rule into §2401(a)
would create a defendant-focused rule for agency suits while retaining 
the traditional challenger-specific accrual rule for other suits against
the United States.  That would give the same statutory text—“right of 
action  first  accrues”—different  meanings  in  different  contexts,  even 
though those words had a single, well-settled meaning when Congress 
enacted §2401(a).  The Court “will not infer such an odd result in the 
absence of any such indication in the text of the limitations period.” 
Green, 578 U. S., at 554.  Pp. 10–16. 

(2) The Board maintains that §2401(a)’s tolling provision—which 
provides that “[t]he action of any person under legal disability or be-
yond the seas at the time the claim accrues may be commenced within
three  years  after  the  disability  ceases”—“reflects  Congress’s  under-
standing  that  a  claim  can  ‘accrue[ ]’  for  purposes  of  Section  2401(a)”
even when a person is unable to sue.  Brief for Respondent 24.  While 
true, the tolling exception applies when the plaintiff had a complete
and present cause of action after he was injured but his legal disability 
or absence from the country prevented him from bringing a timely suit. 
The exception sheds no light on when the clock started for Corner Post. 
P. 16. 

(3) The Court’s precedents in Reading Co. v. Koons, 271 U. S. 58, 
and Crown Coat Front Co. v. United States, 386 U. S. 503, do not sup-
port  the  Board’s  unusual  interpretation  of  “accrual.”  In  Koons,  the 
Court  held  that  a  statutory  wrongful-death  claim  accrued  upon  the