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Page Number: 13.0

10 

WILKINS v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of the Court 

indicates, the Court did not pause over its passing remark.
Nor did the Court mention this again.  Further, even if the 
Court had secretly considered forfeiture, there were nonju-
risdictional reasons the Court could have concluded forfei-
ture  did  not  apply.5   Speculating  about  what  this  Court
might  have  thought  about  arguments  it  never  addressed 
needlessly introduces confusion.  This Court looks for defin-
itive interpretations, not holdings in hiding.

Finally, there is United States v. Beggerly, 524 U. S. 38 
(1998).  The Court in Beggerly addressed whether §2409a(g)
could be equitably tolled.  Id., at 48–49.  Subject-matter ju-
risdiction, as noted, is never subject to equitable tolling.  If 
Block  and  Mottaz  had  definitely  interpreted  §2409a(g)  as
subject-matter  jurisdictional,  the  Court  could  have  just
cited those cases and ended the matter without further dis-
cussion.6  Instead, the Court parsed the provision’s text and
context,  concluding  that  “by  providing  that  the  statute  of 
limitations will not begin to run until the plaintiff ‘knew or 
should have known of the claim of the United States,’ ” the 
law “has already effectively allowed for equitable tolling.” 
Beggerly, 524 U. S., at 48.  Also relevant were “the unusu-
ally  generous”  time  limit  and  the  importance  of  clarity 
when it comes to land rights.  Id., at 48–49.  This careful 

—————— 

5 For example, the Court might have concluded forfeiture did not apply
because  of  the  confusing  way  the  case  had  been  pleaded,  see  Brief  for
United States in United States v. Mottaz, O. T. 1985, No. 85–546, p. 22, 
n. 11, or that any forfeiture argument had itself been forfeited.  Or the 
Court might have, on reflection, agreed with the Government that it had
sufficiently raised the Quiet Title Act prior to rehearing.  Ibid.  The dis-
sent,  post,  at  8,  n. 3,  mistakes  these  observations  as  a  suggestion  that 
Mottaz actually took one of those approaches.  Far from it.  This Court is 
merely declining to read tea leaves to divine lost meanings about what 
the  Mottaz  Court  might  have  thought  about  a  forfeiture  argument  it 
never raised and over which “the parties did not cross swords.”  Arbaugh 
v. Y & H Corp., 546 U. S. 500, 512 (2006). 

6 The Court was not unaware of Block, quoting it for a different point 

in the very same section.  Beggerly, 524 U. S., at 48.