Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-1164_7li8.pdf
Page Number: 8.0

Cite as:  598 U. S. ____ (2023) 

5 

Opinion of the Court 

rule, we have made plain that most time bars are nonjuris-
dictional.”  Ibid.  Nothing about §2409a(g)’s text or context 
gives  reason  to  depart  from  this  beaten  path.  Section 
2409a(g) states that an action “shall be barred unless it is 
commenced within twelve years of the date upon which it
accrued.”  This  “text  speaks  only  to  a  claim’s  timeliness,”
and  its  “mundane  statute-of-limitations  language  say[s] 
only what every time bar, by definition, must: that after a 
certain time a claim is barred.”  Id., at 410.  Further, “[t]his 
Court has often explained that Congress’s separation of a
filing deadline from a jurisdictional grant indicates that the
time bar is not jurisdictional.”  Id., at 411.  The Quiet Title 
Act’s  jurisdictional  grant  is  in  28  U. S. C.  §1346(f ),4  well 
afield of §2409a(g).  And “[n]othing conditions the jurisdic-
tional grant on the limitations perio[d], or otherwise links
those separate provisions.”  Wong, 575 U. S., at 412.  Sec-
tion  2409a(g)  therefore  lacks  a  jurisdictional  clear  state-
ment. 

B 
The Government does not focus on the text of §2409a(g),
but instead points to a trilogy of decisions by this Court that
purportedly  establish  that  the  provision  is  jurisdictional. 

—————— 
the Government’s waiver of sovereign immunity.”  Wong, 575 U. S., at 
417–418  (citing  Irwin  v.  Department  of  Veterans  Affairs,  498  U. S.  89 
(1990)).  Contrary to the dissent’s suggestion, Irwin extends to the “many 
statutes  that  create  claims  for  relief  against  the  United  States  or  its 
agencies [and] apply only to Government defendants.”  Scarborough v. 
Principi, 541 U. S. 401, 422 (2004); cf. also Boechler v. Commissioner, 596 
U. S. ___, ___ (2022) (slip op., at 3) (applying clear statement rule to pe-
titions for review of agency action).  Notably, even the dissent in Wong
did not engage in such an attempt to turn back the clock, instead arguing
that the provision in that case was jurisdictional based on its specific text
and history.  See 575 U. S., at 423–428 (opinion of ALITO, J.). 

4 Section 1346(f ) provides that “[t]he district courts shall have exclu-
sive original jurisdiction of civil actions under section 2409a to quiet title 
to an estate or interest in real property in which an interest is claimed 
by the United States.”