Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-1008_1b82.pdf
Page Number: 27.0

22 

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

Opinion of the Court 

should  have  his  own  day  in  court.”    Richards  v.  Jefferson 
County, 517 U. S. 793, 798 (1996) (internal quotation marks
omitted).  Under the Board’s finality rule, only those fortu-
nate enough to suffer an injury within six years of a rule’s
promulgation may bring an APA suit.  Everyone else—no 
matter how serious the injury or how illegal the rule—has 
no recourse.9 

The dissent also raises a host of policy arguments mas-
querading  as  “matter[s]  of  congressional  intent.”    Post,  at 
18–24.  And  it  warns  that  today’s  opinion  will  “devastate 
the  functioning  of  the  Federal  Government.”  Post,  at  23. 
This  claim  is  baffling—indeed,  bizarre—in  a  case  about  a 
statute of limitations.  The Solicitor General, whose man-
date is to protect the interests of the Federal Government,
comes  nowhere  close  to  suggesting  that  a  plaintiff-centric
interpretation  of  §2401(a)  spells  the  end  of  the  United 
States as we know it.  Perhaps the dissent believes that the 
Code of Federal Regulations is full of substantively illegal
regulations  vulnerable  to  meritorious  challenges;  or  per-
haps it believes that meritless challenges will flood federal 
courts  that  are  too  incompetent  to  reject  them.    We  have 
more confidence in both the Executive Branch and the Ju-
diciary.  But  we  do  agree  with  the  dissent  on  one  point: 
“ ‘[T]he  ball  is  in  Congress’  court.’ ”    Post,  at  24  (quoting 
Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 550 U. S. 618, 661 
(2007)  (Ginsburg,  J.,  dissenting)).    Section  2401(a)  is  75 
years old.  If it is a poor fit for modern APA litigation, the 

—————— 

9 Corner Post has no other way to obtain meaningful review of Regula-
tion II.  Because Regulation II does not directly regulate it, it will never
be  subject  to  enforcement  actions  in  which  it  may  challenge  the  rule’s 
legality.  See n. 2, supra.  Nor is the ability to petition the Board for rule-
making to change Regulation II a sufficient substitute for de novo judi-
cial review of its lawfulness: The agency’s “discretionary decision to de-
cline  to  take  new  action”  would  be  subject  only  to  “deferential  judicial 
review.”  PDR Network, LLC v. Carlton & Harris Chiropractic, Inc., 588 
U. S. 1, 25 (2019) (KAVANAUGH, J., concurring in judgment).