Supreme Court Holds That Federal Quiet Title Act’s Statute of Limitations is Non-Jurisdictional

Larry Wilkins and Jane Stanton petitioned the Supreme Court to review the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals’ holding that the court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to hear their quiet title action against the United States Government. In its opinion, the Ninth Circuit relied on Supreme Court precedent holding that the federal Quiet Title Act’s twelve-year statute of limitations is “jurisdictional” in nature and reasoned that failure to comply with its terms strips the court of its subject matter jurisdiction to hear the case. 28 U.S.C. § 2409a. In a 6-3 opinion, the Supreme Court reversed the Ninth Circuit’s decision.

The Court began its analysis by acknowledging that “Jurisdiction, this Court has observed, is a word of many, too many, meanings.” Wilkins v. United States, 598 U.S. 152, 156, 143 S. Ct. 870, 875, 215 L. Ed. 2d 116 (2023). Failure to comply with jurisdictional time limits may warrant dismissal for want of subject matter jurisdiction, whereas other deadlines function as “procedural” or “claims processing rules,” simply seeking to “promote the orderly progress of litigation by requiring that the parties take certain procedural steps at certain specified times.” Id. at 157. In general, the Court will “treat a procedural requirement as jurisdictional only if Congress ‘clearly states’ that it is.” Id. Citing this “clear statement rule,” the Court noted that most time bars are not jurisdictional and held that:

Nothing about § 2409a(g)’s text or context gives reason to depart from this beaten path. Section 2409a(g) states that an action ‘shall be barred unless it is commenced within twelve years of the date upon which it accrued.’ This ‘text speaks only to a claim’s timeliness,’ and its ‘mundane statute-of-limitations language . . . say[s] only what every time bar, by definition, must: that after a certain time a claim is barred.” Further, ‘[t]his Court has often explained that Congress’s separation of a filing deadline from a jurisdictional grant indicates that the time bar is not jurisdictional.’ The Quiet Title Act’s jurisdictional grant is in 28 U. S. C. § 1346(f), well afield of § 2409a(g). And ‘[n]othing conditions the jurisdictional grant on the limitations perio[d], or otherwise links those separate provisions.’ Section 2409a(g) therefore lacks a jurisdictional clear statement.

Id. at 160 (internal citations omitted).

The majority distinguished a series of cases that the Government argued had already labeled the Act’s time bar as jurisdictional, going to great lengths not to overturn precedent or violate stare decisis by maintaining that, “The mere existence of a decision employing the term jurisdiction without elaboration does not show Congress adopted that view.” Id. at 165. The three-Justice dissent argued that the majority committed two critical errors: (1) ignoring that the statute involves a condition to a waiver of sovereign immunity (the dissent noted that, “This Court has long construed such conditions on waivers of sovereign immunity as jurisdictional.” Id. at 166.) and (2) inexplicably disregarding precedent that acknowledged the jurisdictional character of the Quiet Title Act’s time bar. Id.  

The majority’s analysis can aid practitioners in determining whether a litigant’s failure to act in a timely manner may give rise to a jurisdictional challenge. The “clear statement rule” serves as the starting point in any such assessment, but the Court’s decision also shows an emphasis on the language of the particular statute over potentially countervailing precedent.