Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-1008_1b82.pdf
Page Number: 56.0

10 

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

JACKSON, J., dissenting 

Cleaning Pension Trust Fund v. Ferbar Corp. of Cal., 522 
U. S. 192, 201 (1997).  But those statements were made in 
the  context  of  particular  cases,  each  of  which  dealt  with
plaintiff-specific  causes  of  action.  See,  e.g.,  Gabelli,  568 
U. S., at 446 (civil enforcement claim by the Securities and
Exchange  Commission);  Wallace,  549  U. S.,  at  388  (false
imprisonment  and  arrest  claims);  Graham  County,  545 
U. S.,  at  412  (retaliation  claim  against  an  employer);  Bay 
Area  Laundry,  522  U. S.,  at  195  (claim  alleging  failure  to 
make required payments to employee pension funds). 

Here is what I mean by this.  When a complaint brought 
against a defendant asserts, “You falsely imprisoned me,”
or “You retaliated against me,” it  is making  a legal claim 
that is specific to the particular plaintiff.  But, as discussed 
below, it is not similarly plaintiff specific to bring a claim 
saying, for example, that a particular regulation is invalid
because it “exceeds the Board’s statutory authority,” or be-
cause the Government “failed to consider important aspects
of the problem,” as the complaint here alleges.  App. to Pet. 
for  Cert.  80,  82.    So,  while  accrual  may  sometimes—even 
usually—be plaintiff specific, that is just because underly-
ing legal claims are often plaintiff specific.  The precedents
the majority cites never say otherwise; i.e., they do not tell 
us that accrual must always be plaintiff specific.

The majority’s other hard-and-fast distinction—between 
statutes of limitations and statutes of repose—fares no bet-
ter.  See ante, at 9–10.  The majority sets up a dichotomy:
Statutes of limitations are plaintiff-centric rules that “ ‘re-
quire  plaintiffs  to  pursue  diligent  prosecution  of  known 
claims,’ ”  while  statutes  of  repose  emphasize  finality  and 
are tied to “ ‘the last culpable act or omission of the defend-
ant.’ ”    Ante,  at  9  (quoting  CTS  Corp.  v.  Waldburger,  573 
U. S. 1, 8 (2014)).  The problem is that statutes of limita-
tions and statutes of repose, while different, are not nearly 
as different as the majority imagines.  It is true that stat-
utes of repose are considered to be “defendant-protective.”