Opinion ID: 1057414
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Placement

Text: Seeking another interpretive tool to support its position, the majority emphasizes the fact that § 2401(b) is located in 28 The majority notes that § 2675 is silent as to the deadline for filing a properly exhausted claim in the district court and concludes that “there is no contextual reason to think that the limitations period provisions are also jurisdictional.” Op. at 28. But § 2675 does not require only that individuals exhaust their administrative remedies; instead, it specifies that individuals must exhaust their administrative remedies first (i.e. before they file complaints in federal court). See 28 U.S.C. § 2675(a). Thus, the statute requires a particular timing of administrative exhaustion, and the McNeil Court found this timing requirement significant. See McNeil, 508 U.S. at 111 (noting that the “petitioner’s complaint was filed too early”); id. at 112 (addressing the burdens premature filings impose on the judicial system and the Department of Justice). Just as in McNeil, appellant Wong’s complaint was filed “too early” and imposed a burden on the judicial system and Department of Justice. Because late filings impose similar burdens on the courts and the Department of Justice, there is good reason to believe that the limitations period expressed in § 2401(b) is also jurisdictional. WONG V. BEEBE 95 a provision separate from the FTCA’s jurisdiction-granting provision. See Op. at 23. With respect, this fact is irrelevant. As the Court has explained, “some time limits are jurisdictional even though expressed in a separate statutory section from jurisdictional grants, while others are not, even when incorporated into the jurisdictional provisions.” Barnhart, 537 U.S. at 159 n.6 (citations omitted). “Formalistic rules do not account for the difference, which is explained by contextual and historical indications of what Congress meant to accomplish.” Id. Even more problematic to the majority’s analysis of the FTCA’s reorganization in 1948, see Op. at 26, is the inconvenient enactment of a law rejecting placement in the Act as a valid interpretive tool. The majority acknowledges that, before 1948, Congress had expressly conditioned the grant of jurisdiction over tort claims against the United States upon plaintiffs’ compliance with, among other things, the FTCA’s original limitations provision. See Op. at 26. In 1948, however, Congress reorganized the FTCA and placed the limitations provision in chapter 161 and other provisions, such as § 2675, in chapter 171. See Op. at 26. It appears the majority would conclude from this fact that Congress intended to separate jurisdictional requirements (§ 2675) from non-jurisdictional ones (§ 2401). Congress, however, expressly rejected this possible reading of its reorganization efforts by an enactment of law. See Pub. L. No. 773, 62 Stat. 869, 991 (1948) (“No inference of a legislative construction is to be drawn by reason of the chapter in Title 28, Judiciary and Judicial Procedure, . . . in which any section is placed.”). The majority simply ignores this Act of Congress, perhaps because it cuts directly against the majority’s desired result: interpretive value based on the statute’s placement. 96 WONG V. BEEBE Congress clearly stated that the placement of § 2401 in chapter 161 was not intended to change the way it should be interpreted. If Congress intended to condition the grant of jurisdiction over tort claims against the United States on compliance with the limitations period, the recodification in 1948 should not be read to alter that intent. That Congress later amended the jurisdiction-granting provision to provide that the district courts would have exclusive jurisdiction over FTCA actions “[s]ubject to the provisions of chapter 171 of this title,” 28 U.S.C. § 1346(b)(1), says nothing about the jurisdictional status of a provision located in chapter 161.