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6 

WILKINS v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of the Court 

None  of  these  three  decisions  definitively  interpreted
§2409a(g) as jurisdictional.

This Court has made clear that it will not undo a “defini-
tive earlier interpretation” of a statutory provision as juris-
dictional without due regard for principles of stare decisis. 
John R. Sand & Gravel Co. v. United States, 552 U. S. 130, 
138 (2008).  At the same time, however, “[c]ourts, including 
this Court, have more than occasionally misused the term
‘jurisdictional’  to  refer  to  nonjurisdictional  prescriptions.” 
Fort Bend, 587 U. S., at ___–___, n. 4 (slip op., at 5–6, n. 4) 
(some  internal  quotation  marks  and  alterations  omitted). 
The  mere  fact  that  this  Court  previously  described  some-
thing “without elaboration” as jurisdictional therefore does 
not end the inquiry.  Henderson, 562 U. S., at 437.  To sep-
arate the wheat from the chaff, this Court has asked if the 
prior  decision  addressed  whether  a  provision  is  “ ‘techni-
cally jurisdictional’ ”—whether it  truly operates as a limit 
on a court’s subject-matter jurisdiction—and whether any-
thing  in  the  decision  “turn[ed]  on  that  characterization.” 
Arbaugh, 546 U. S., at 512 (quoting Steel Co. v. Citizens for 
Better Environment, 523 U. S. 83, 91 (1998)); see also Zipes 
v.  Trans  World  Airlines,  Inc.,  455  U. S.  385,  395  (1982) 
(looking to whether “the legal character of the requirement 
was . . . at issue”).  If a decision simply states that “the court 
is dismissing ‘for lack of jurisdiction’ when some threshold 
fact has not been established,” it is understood as a “drive-
by jurisdictional rulin[g]” that receives “no precedential ef-
fect.”  Arbaugh, 546 U. S., at 511 (some internal quotation
marks omitted). 

The Government begins with Block, 461 U. S. 273.  The 
case presented “two separate issues” about the Quiet Title 
Act, neither of which was whether the 12-year limit was ju-
risdictional.  Id., at 276.  First, the Court held that the Act 
was  “the  exclusive  procedure”  for  challenging  “the  title  of 
the United States to real property.”  Id., at 276–277, 286. 
Second,  the  Court  held  that  the  12-year  limit  applied  to