Opinion ID: 1057414
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Supreme Court’s Interpretation of Similar

Text: Provisions The majority correctly notes that “there has not been . . . a venerable, consistent line of [Supreme Court] cases treating the FTCA limitations period as jurisdictional” and, indeed, that “there is no Supreme Court precedent on the question.”27 Op. at 30. Still, the Supreme Court has examined similar provisions and offered guidance useful here. As previously stated, Kubrick and John R. Sand & Gravel, taken together, strongly suggest that § 2401(b)’s time limits are jurisdictional. The Court’s analysis in McNeil only bolsters this conclusion. There, the Court held that 28 U.S.C. § 2675(a) “bars claimants from bringing suit in federal court [under the 27 The majority’s focus is—jurisprudentially speaking—far too narrow. See Reed Elsevier, 559 U.S. at 168 (“[T]he relevant question here is not . . . whether [the statute] itself has long been labeled jurisdictional, but whether the type of limitation that [the statute] imposes is one that is properly ranked as jurisdictional absent an express designation.”). Section 2401(b) expresses the same “type of limitation” the Court held jurisdictional in Soriano and John R. Sand & Gravel. See 28 U.S.C. § 2501 (“Every claim of which the United States Court of Federal Claims has jurisdiction shall be barred unless the petition thereon is filed within six years after such claim first accrues.”). WONG V. BEEBE 93 FTCA] until they have exhausted their administrative remedies.” McNeil, 508 U.S. at 113. This requirement is jurisdictional. Courts cannot entertain a suit brought before exhaustion of administrative remedies, even if the claimant exhausts those remedies before “substantial progress [is] made in the litigation,” because such a suit was filed too early. Id. at 110–11. Here, there is no dispute that, like the petitioner in McNeil, Wong filed her action before denial of her administrative claim and was similarly premature. The majority emphasizes that § 2675(a) is located in chapter 171 and that Congress expressly conditioned the district courts’ jurisdiction upon plaintiffs’ compliance with the provisions of that chapter. See Op. at 23. In McNeil, however, the Court did not even mention this fact. Instead, it based its decision on two considerations: (1) the statutory text is unambiguous and expresses Congress’s intent to require complete exhaustion of administrative remedies, and (2) “[e]very premature filing of an action under the FTCA imposes some burden on the judicial system and on the Department of Justice which must assume the defense of such actions.” McNeil, 508 U.S. at 111–12. With respect to the premature filing, the Court noted that, “[a]lthough the burden may be slight in an individual case, the statute governs the processing of a vast multitude of claims,” such that “[t]he interest in orderly administration of this body of litigation is best served by adherence to the straightforward statutory command.” Id. The Court’s language suggests once again that the FTCA’s timing requirements fit into the jurisdictional category. See John R. Sand & Gravel, 552 U.S. at 133 (identifying “facilitating the administration of claims” as one of the broader, system-related goals that makes a statutory 94 WONG V. BEEBE time limit “more absolute”). In McNeil, the Court took a systemic view of its decision; it was concerned with the “orderly administration of this body of litigation” precisely because § 2675(a) “governs the processing of a vast multitude of claims.” McNeil, 508 U.S. at 112. Because the same is true of § 2401(b), our analysis should feature the same concern. And, when one takes this more systemic view of § 2401(b), one will surely find that every premature—or late—filing imposes a burden on the judicial system and on the Department of Justice and agree with the Court that “strict adherence to the procedural requirements specified by the legislature is the best guarantee of evenhanded administration of the law.” Id. at 113.28