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Page Number: 23.0

18 

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

Opinion of the Court 

of Contract Appeals; its claim was “not subject to adjudica-
tion in the courts” until it was denied by the Board.  Id., at 
511.  The question presented was whether §2401(a)’s stat-
ute of limitations began to run when the Board issued its 
final determination or at an earlier date.  Id., at 507. 

We  held  that  the  right  of  action  first  accrued  when  the
Board denied the contractor’s claim, because the contractor 
had “the right to resort to the courts only upon the making
of that administrative determination.”  Id., at 512.  We ex-
plained that §2401(a)’s phrase “right of action” refers to “the
right to file a civil action in the courts against the United
States.”  Id., at 511.  Given the contract’s administrative-
exhaustion  requirement,  “the  contractor’s  claim  was  sub-
ject  only  to  administrative,  not  judicial,  determination  in
the first instance”; the plaintiff was “not legally entitled to
ask the courts to adjudicate [its] claim as an original mat-
ter.”  Id., at 511–512, 515.  So its “claim or right to bring a
civil  action  against  the  United  States”  did  not  “matur[e]” 
until the Board made its final decision.  Id., at 514.  Crown 
Coat  thus  supports  Corner  Post:  The  Court  interpreted
§2401(a) to embody the traditional rule that a claim accrues
when the plaintiff has the right to bring suit in court.
  Notwithstanding  Crown  Coat’s  holding,  the  Board  and 
the dissent try to marshal support from its dicta.  The Court 
noted that it is hazardous “to define for all purposes when 
a  ‘cause  of  action’  first  ‘accrues’ ”;  it  cautioned  that  those 
words  should  be  “ ‘interpreted  in  the  light  of  the  general
purposes of the statute and of its other provisions’ ” and the
“ ‘practical  ends’ ”  served  by  time  limitations.  Id.,  at  517 
(quoting Koons, 271 U. S., at 62).  Seizing on this language,
the Board insists that  the word “accrues” is a chameleon, 
taking on different meanings in different contexts—and in
the administrative-law context, a right of action “accrues”
when  a  regulation  is  final,  full  stop.  See  also  post,  at  6 
(JACKSON, J., dissenting) (citing Crown Coat for the propo-
sition that “the word ‘accrues’ lacks any fixed meaning”).