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UNITED STATES v. BEGGERLY

Opinion of the Court

of limitations, which begins to run from the date the plaintiff
knows or should have known about the claim of the United
States.
28 U. S. C. § 2409a(g). The Court of Appeals noted
that respondents knew about the Government’s claim for
more than 12 years before it ﬁled this suit, but concluded
that the 12-year statute was subject to equitable tolling and
should be tolled in this case.

114 F. 3d, at 489.

Satisﬁed as to its jurisdiction, the Court of Appeals then
addressed the merits. Relying on the Boudreau grant, the
court concluded that the “United States has no legitimate
claim to the land [and that] the validity of the Beggerlys’
title is a legal certainty.”
It therefore
vacated the settlement agreement and remanded the case to
the District Court with instructions that it enter judgment
quieting title in favor of respondents. One judge dissented.
We granted certiorari, 522 U. S. 1038 (1998), and now reverse.
The Government’s primary contention is that the Court
of Appeals erred in concluding that it had jurisdiction over
respondents’ 1994 suit.
It ﬁrst attacks the lower court’s
conclusion that jurisdiction was established because the
suit was an “independent action” within the meaning of Rule
60(b). The Government argues that an “independent ac-
tion” must be supported by an independent source of juris-
diction, and, in the case of a suit against the United States,
an independent waiver of sovereign immunity. Whereas the
District Court had jurisdiction over the original Adams liti-
gation because the United States was the plaintiff, 28 U. S. C.
§ 1345, there was no statutory basis for the Beggerlys’ 1994
action, and the District Court was therefore correct to have
dismissed it.

We think the Government’s position is inconsistent with
the history and language of Rule 60(b). Prior to the 1937
adoption of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the avail-
ability of relief from a judgment or order turned on whether
the court was still in the same “term” in which the chal-
If it was, the judge “had ple-
lenged judgment was entered.