In the

    United States Court of Appeals
                 For the Seventh Circuit
                     ____________________
No. 23-2821
GEORGE DERNIS and MARIA DERNIS,
                                                Plaintiffs-Appellants,
                                 v.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
                                                 Defendant-Appellee.
                     ____________________

         Appeal from the United States District Court for the
           Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.
           No. 1:21-cv-03157 — Marvin E. Aspen, Judge.
                     ____________________

     ARGUED JANUARY 28, 2025 — DECIDED MAY 1, 2025
                ____________________

   Before HAMILTON, KIRSCH, and MALDONADO, Circuit
Judges.
    HAMILTON, Circuit Judge. Plaintiffs-appellants George and
Maria Dernis sued the United States under the Federal Tort
Claims Act (“FTCA”), 

(b)(1) and 2671–2680,
alleging that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
(“FDIC”) committed various common-law torts. The United
States moved to dismiss under Federal Rules of Civil
Procedure 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6). The district court granted the
2                                                 No. 23-2821

government’s motion, and the Dernises have appealed. We
affirm. The Dernises failed to timely exhaust their
administrative remedies for most of their claims, and their
only timely claim is barred under the FTCA’s intentional torts
exception.
I. Factual and Procedural Background
    The Dernises borrowed money from Premier Bank, a bank
that was engaging in fraudulent lending practices. The loans
were for a business the Dernises owned, and they were
secured by mortgages on their personal real estate. After
Premier Bank’s collapse and appointment of the FDIC as
receiver, the FDIC sold some of the bank’s loans to Amos
Financial in 2014. According to the Dernises, the deal with
Amos included their loans, which they have consistently
maintained were fraudulent and unenforceable. They argue
that the FDIC was aware of the fraudulent nature of the loans
at the time of the sale and failed to take remedial action.
    The Dernises originally filed this action against the FDIC
in both its corporate capacity and as receiver for Premier
Bank. The FDIC moved to dismiss, and the district court
granted the motion but invited an amended complaint. The
Dernises then filed an amended complaint asserting tort
claims against the United States under the FTCA based on the
FDIC’s conduct. The United States moved to dismiss, and the
district court granted the motion, this time without leave to
amend. The court determined that most of the Dernises’
claims were not timely exhausted under 

(b).
As for the sole claim that was timely exhausted, the court
concluded it was barred by 

(h), which
excludes certain intentional torts from the FTCA’s limited
waiver of sovereign immunity. The court dismissed the action
No. 23-2821                                                    3

with prejudice and entered final judgment. We have
jurisdiction under 

.
II. Standard of Review
    We review de novo the district court's dismissal for lack of
subject-matter jurisdiction and for failure to state a claim,
accepting as true the Dernises’ well-pleaded factual
allegations. E.g., International Bhd. of Teamsters v. Republic
Airways Inc., 

, 693 (7th Cir. 2025) (subject-matter
jurisdiction); Peterson v. Wexford Health Sources, Inc., 

 (7th Cir. 2021) (failure to state a claim).
III. Analysis
    The district court properly dismissed the Dernises’ claims.
For more than a decade, the Dernises have unsuccessfully
pursued a host of claims arising from their dealings with
Premier Bank and the FDIC. In this latest action, they seek to
repackage their claims as torts under the FTCA. Under the
FTCA, a tort claim against the United States must be
presented to the appropriate federal agency within two years
of the claim’s accrual or it is “forever barred.” 

(b). The parties agree that the Dernises submitted the
operative administrative claim to the FDIC on January 5, 2021.
Accordingly, for the Dernises’ claims to have complied with
the administrative exhaustion requirement, they must have
accrued on or after January 5, 2019.
   All but one of the Dernises’ claims concern events that oc-
curred a decade or more ago and, as a result, were untimely.
See Khan v. United States, 

, 1171–73 (7th Cir. 2015)
(affirming dismissal of FTCA lawsuit as untimely where
plaintiff failed to present administrative claim to the appro-
priate federal agency within two years of its accrual). The sole
4                                                     No. 23-2821

claim that was timely presented centers on the FDIC’s alleged
refusal to exercise its reversionary interest in several proper-
ties in 2020. That claim is barred by the FTCA’s intentional
torts exception. It is well-settled that the “United States, as
sovereign, is immune from suit save as it consents to be sued,
… and the terms of its consent to be sued in any court define
that court's jurisdiction to entertain the suit.” United States v.
Sherwood, 

 (1941) (citations omitted). The
FTCA waives sovereign immunity for certain tort claims, sub-
ject to several exceptions. Pertinent here is the intentional torts
exception, which bars claims “arising out of assault, battery,
false imprisonment, false arrest, malicious prosecution, abuse
of process, libel, slander, misrepresentation, deceit, or inter-
ference with contract rights.” 

(h).
    The Dernises attempt to evade the FTCA’s limited waiver
of sovereign immunity by phrasing their claims as
conversion, invasion of privacy and intrusion upon seclusion,
intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence and
negligent infliction of emotional distress, and conspiracy.
None of those theories falls expressly under 

(h). We have consistently rejected such efforts to avoid
§ 2680(h) by relabeling claims that are in substance claims for
fraud or misrepresentation. See, e.g., Schneider v. United States,

, 959–63 (7th Cir. 1991) (holding that the nature of
the conduct alleged to have caused the plaintiff’s injury,
rather than the plaintiff’s characterization of the claim,
determined whether the claim fell within the FTCA’s
misrepresentation exception under § 2680(h)). Our analysis
looks beyond a plaintiff’s formal characterization of claims to
their actual substance. See United States v. Neustadt, 

, 701–03 (1961) (holding that § 2680(h) barred claim
No. 23-2821                                                  5

because conduct underlying negligence action was in essence
negligent misrepresentation).
    Here, the district court correctly concluded that the
substance of the Dernises’ timely claims falls within
categories of intentional torts for which the FTCA expressly
preserves sovereign immunity: particularly misrepre-
sentation, deceit, and interference with contract rights. On
appeal, the Dernises do not—and indeed could not—contest
this finding. Instead, they launch a Hail Mary pass, arguing
that even if their claims are barred by the FTCA’s intentional
tort exception, the FDIC’s “sue-and-be-sued” clause should
be understood as providing a broader, independent waiver of
sovereign immunity. That theory fails for two reasons. First,
and most obvious, the United States (and not the FDIC) is the
sole defendant in this case. Because the FTCA provides the
exclusive remedy for tort claims against the United States, the
FDIC’s enabling statute is irrelevant in such cases. See 

(a) (“The authority of any federal agency to sue
and be sued in its own name shall not be construed to
authorize suits against such federal agency on claims which
are cognizable under section 1346(b) of this title, and the
remedies provided by [the FTCA] in such cases shall be
exclusive.”); see also Hughes v. United States, 

(7th Cir. 1982) (“Under the Federal Tort Claims Act, a
governmental agency cannot be sued in its own name; the
action must be brought against the United States.”).
    Second, the Dernises misinterpret the scope of § 2680(h).
Even if the FDIC were still a defendant, § 2680(h) bars the
covered claims outright. Our precedent establishes that
§ 2680(h) does not allow them under other statutes, including
the FDIC’s sue-and-be-sued clause. See FDIC v. Citizens Bank
6                                                 No. 23-2821

& Tr. Co., 

 (7th Cir. 1979) (“[T]he waiver of
immunity from tort liability of a federal agency or
governmental corporation such as FDIC is defined in the
Federal Tort Claims Act, and that sue-and-be-sued authority
does not permit suit outside that Act for torts excepted from
the coverage of that Act.”).
                                                 AFFIRMED