Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/558bv.pdf
Page Number: 232

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

71 

Opinion of the Court 

Justice Ginsburg delivered the opinion of the Court. 
“It  is  most  true  that  this  Court  will  not  take  jurisdiction 
if it should not,” Chief Justice Marshall famously wrote, “but 
it  is  equally  true,  that  it  must  take  jurisdiction  if  it 
should. . . . We  have no more right to decline the exercise of 
jurisdiction  which  is  given,  than  to  usurp  that  which  is  not 
given.”  Cohens  v.  Virginia,  6  Wheat.  264,  404  (1821);  see 
Marshall v.  Marshall, 547 U. S. 293, 298–299 (2006).  While 
Chief Justice Marshall’s statement bears “ﬁne tuning,” there 
is  surely  a  starting  presumption  that  when  jurisdiction  is 
conferred,  a  court  may  not  decline  to  exercise  it.  See  R. 
Fallon,  J.  Manning,  D.  Meltzer,  &  D.  Shapiro,  Hart  &  Wech­
sler’s The Federal Courts and the Federal System 1061–1062 
(6th  ed.  2009).  The  general  rule  applicable  to  courts  also 
holds for administrative agencies directed by Congress to ad­
judicate particular controversies. 

Congress  vested  in  the  National  Railroad  Adjustment 
Board  (hereinafter  NRAB  or  Board)  jurisdiction  to  adjudi­
cate  grievances  of  railroad  employees  that  remain  unset­
tled  after  pursuit  of  internal  procedures.  45  U. S. C.  § 153 
First  (h),  (i).  We  consider  in  this  case  ﬁve  nearly  identi­
cal  decisions  of  a  panel  of  the  NRAB  dismissing  employee 
claims  “for  lack  of  jurisdiction.”  NRAB  First  Div.  Award 
No. 26089 etc. (Mar. 15, 2005), App. to Pet. for Cert. 65a–107a, 
69a (hereinafter Panel Decision).  In each case, the panel de­
clared  that a  procedural  rule raised  by  a  panel member,  un­
prompted  by  the  parties,  was  “jurisdictional”  in  character 
and therefore commanded threshold dismissal. 

The  panel’s  characterization,  we  hold,  was  misconceived. 
Congress  authorized  the  Board  to  prescribe  rules  for  the 
presentation  and  processing  of  claims,  § 153  First  (v),  but 
Congress alone controls the Board’s jurisdiction.  By 
presuming  authority  to  declare  procedural  rules  “juris­
dictional,”  the  panel  failed  “to  conform,  or  conﬁne  itself,  to 
matters  [Congress  placed]  within  the  scope  of  [NRAB] 
jurisdiction,”  § 153  First  (q).  Because  the  panel  was  not