Corner Post, Inc. v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System

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Corner Post, Inc. v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Seal of the United States Supreme Court.svg
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued February 20, 2024
Decided July 1, 2024
Full case nameCorner Post, Inc. v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Docket no. 22-1008
Citations603 U.S. ___ ( more )
Argument Oral argument
Decision Opinion
Case history
PriorCase dismissed, Corner Post, Inc. v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, No. 1:21-cv-00095, 2022 WL 909317 (D.N.D. March 11, 2022), affirmed sub nom. North Dakota Retail Ass'n v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, 55 F.4th 634 (8th Cir. 2022).
Questions presented
Whether a plaintiff's Administrative Procedure Act claim "first accrues" under 28 U.S.C.   § 2401(a) when an agency issues a rule — regardless of whether that rule injures the plaintiff on that date — or when the rule first causes a plaintiff to "suffer[] legal wrong" or be "adversely affected or aggrieved."
Holding
An APA claim does not accrue for purposes of §2401(a)'s 6-year statute of limitations until the plaintiff is injured by final agency action.
Court membership
Chief Justice
John Roberts
Associate Justices
Clarence Thomas  · Samuel Alito
Sonia Sotomayor  · Elena Kagan
Neil Gorsuch  · Brett Kavanaugh
Amy Coney Barrett  · Ketanji Brown Jackson
Case opinions
MajorityBarrett, joined by Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh
ConcurrenceKavanaugh
DissentJackson, joined by Sotomayor, Kagan
Laws applied
28 U.S.C.   § 2401(a)
Administrative Procedure Act

Corner Post, Inc. v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, 603 U.S. ___(2024), is a United States Supreme Court case about the statute of limitations for judicial review of federal agency rulemaking under the Administrative Procedure Act. The legal question under review was whether a challenge to the validity of a rule must be brought within six years of the rule's issuance—or instead within six years of when the rule first injures the particular plaintiff challenging the rule. The Supreme Court held, by a 6–3 vote, that the statute of limitations does not start running until the particular plaintiff has been harmed by the agency action.

Contents

Most courts of appeals tasked with deciding this issue—before the Supreme Court granted review—concluded that the limitation period for pre-enforcement review runs from the date that the rule became effective. Only the Sixth Circuit expressly rejected this prevailing interpretation. [1] However, the prevailing view had been criticized as disregarding the text of the statute, [2] which says that "every civil action commenced against the United States shall be barred unless the complaint is filed within six years after the right of action first accrues." [3]

The lawsuit was a challenge to a 2011 regulation of the Federal Reserve Board setting the maximum fees that large banks can charge merchants for a debit-card transaction, [4] but the question before the Supreme Court was limited to whether the case was properly dismissed because of the statute of limitations. [5] Beyond the particular case, this has wider significance for whether federal regulations more than six years old can still be challenged for procedural defects in their enactment. [6]

Background

In 2010, Congress enacted the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. One part of the Act, the Durbin amendment, required the Federal Reserve Board to promulgate a regulation limiting fees for debit-card transactions. In 2011, the Board published its final rule, which set the maximum transaction fee at $0.21 plus 0.05% (5 basis points). [4]

Several merchant groups challenged the rule in 2011 in NACS v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System , saying that the fee cap had been set too high. The district judge ruled that the Board had not reasonably complied with the Durbin amendment, but the D.C. Circuit reversed on appeal, upholding the regulation as within the agency's discretion. In 2015, the Supreme Court declined to review the case. [7]

In April 2021, two North Dakota trade associations—the North Dakota Retail Association and the North Dakota Petroleum Marketers Association—filed this case under the name North Dakota Retail Association v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. The Federal Reserve Board filed a motion to dismiss the case for lack of jurisdiction, saying that the six-year statute of limitations had elapsed. In response, the trade associations added a third plaintiff, Corner Post, Inc., a truck stop which had first opened in 2018. Nevertheless, the district court dismissed the suit with respect to all three plaintiffs, saying that their claims accrued at the time that the rule was enacted in 2011. The Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed the decision of the district court.

The Supreme Court granted review by writ of certiorari on September 29, 2023. [8]

Supreme Court

Justice Amy Coney Barrett delivered the opinion of the Supreme Court, joined by Justices Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh. [9] The Court held that a "claim accrues when the plaintiff has the right to assert it in court—and in the case of the [ Administrative Procedure Act ], that is when the plaintiff is injured by final agency action." [10]

Justice Kavanaugh wrote a concurring opinion on an "additional point" not resolved by the majority opinion. He disagreed with the government's position that the APA does not authorize universal vacatur of a rule, in which a court voids a regulation even as applied to those not involved in the case. He said that the statutory provision directing courts to "set aside [unlawful] agency action" allows courts to vacate regulations—distinguishing vacatur from universal injunctions, which he said would go beyond courts' remedial power. In his view, universal vacatur was necessary for unregulated parties to be able to challenge "adverse downstream effects" of agency actions. [11]

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote a dissenting opinion, joined by Justices Sotomayor and Kagan. She said that the majority accepted a simplified definition of accrual, which the Supreme Court had previously said is context specific, even though statutes of limitations in administrative law cases normally ran from final agency action. She also noted that Corner Post and Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo —the decision that overturned Chevron deference days earlier—would cause a "tsunami of lawsuits" to old agency regulations whose legal interpretations were previously entitled to deference. [10]

Reactions

Retired judge David Tatel pointed out that this decision means that new businesses can be created for the purpose of challenging government regulations that would otherwise be protected by the statute of limitations. [12]

In July 2024, Representatives Jerry Nadler and Lou Correa introduced the Corner Post Reversal Act, which would adopt the dissenting view in Corner Post. [13]

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References

  1. ↑ James R. Conde & Michael Buschbacher,  The Little Tucker Act's Statute of Limitations Does Not Govern Garden-Variety Pre-enforcement Suits Under the APA , Yale J. on Regul.: Notice & Comment (September 26, 2023) (citing Herr v. U.S. Forest Serv., 803 F.3d 809, 812 (6th Cir. 2015) (Sutton, J.)).
  2. ↑ Conde & Buschbacher, supra, at 812 (citing John Kendrick, (Un)limiting Administrative Review: Wind River, Section 2401(a), and the Right to Challenge Federal Agencies , 103 Va. L. Rev. 157, 179–202(2017)).
  3. ↑ 28 U.S.C.   § 2401(a) .
  4. 1 2 Kalvis Golde,  North Dakota truck stop objects to federal allowance for debit-card processing fees , SCOTUSblog  (May 13, 2023).
  5. ↑ Kimberly Strawbridge Robinson,  Debit Card Fee Rule a New Challenge for Justices on Agency Power , Bloomberg Law  (September 29, 2023).
  6. ↑ Robinson, supra ("The outcome, depending on how the court rules, could clear the way for challenges to regulations years or even decades after they take effect.").
  7. ↑ Lawrence Hurley & Emily Stephenson,  Supreme Court rejects challenge to debit card 'swipe fees' rules , Reuters  (January 20, 2015).
  8. ↑ Amy Howe,  Twelve cases added to Supreme Court calendar , SCOTUSblog  (Sep. 29, 2023).
  9. ↑ Adam Liptak & Abbie VanSickle, Supreme Court Extends Time Frame for Challenges to Regulations , The New York Times (July 1, 2024; original location).
  10. 1 2 Greg Stohr,  Supreme Court Allows Swipe-Fee Lawsuit in Blow to Regulators (1) , Bloomberg Law  (July 1, 2024).
  11. ↑ Benjamin M. Barczewski & Jonathan M. Gaffney, Cong. Research Serv., LSB11197, Corner Post and the Statute of Limitations for Administrative Procedure Act Claims3 (2024).
  12. ↑ Terry Gross (July 3, 2024). "A retired federal judge reflects on going blind and losing faith in the Supreme Court". NPR.
  13. ↑ Pamela King,  Dems look to prevent flood of lawsuits after SCOTUS ruling , E&E News  (July 12, 2024).
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