(Slip Opinion)              OCTOBER TERM, 2023                                       1

                                       Syllabus

         NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is
       being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.
       The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been
       prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader.
       See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 

.


SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

                                       Syllabus

  CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS OF
        THE FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR
                 THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

    No. 22–1008. Argued February 20, 2024—Decided July 1, 2024

Since it opened for business in 2018, petitioner Corner Post, like most
  merchants, has accepted debit cards as a form of payment. Debit card
  transactions require merchants to pay an “interchange fee” to the bank
  that issued the card. The fee amount is set by the payment networks
  (such as Visa and MasterCard) that process the transaction. In 2010
  Congress tasked the Federal Reserve Board with making sure that in-
  terchange fees were “reasonable and proportional to the cost incurred
  by the issuer with respect to the transaction.” 15 U. S. C. §1693o–
  2(a)(3)(A). Discharging this duty, in 2011 the Board published Regu-
  lation II, which sets a maximum interchange fee of $0.21 per transac-
  tion plus .05% of the transaction’s value.
     In 2021, Corner Post joined a suit brought against the Board under
  the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). The complaint challenged
  Regulation II on the ground that it allows higher interchange fees than
  the statute permits. The District Court dismissed the suit as time-
  barred under 

(a), the default six-year statute of limi-
  tations applicable to suits against the United States. The Eighth Cir-
  cuit affirmed.
Held: 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 ac-
  tion. Pp. 4–23.
     (a) The APA grants Corner Post a cause of action subject to certain
  conditions, see 

 and §704, and 

(a) de-
  lineates the time period in which Corner Post may assert its claim.
  Section 702 authorizes persons injured by agency action to obtain ju-
  dicial review by suing the United States or one of its agencies, officers,
2        CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS

                                   Syllabus

    or employees. See Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner, 

, 140–
    141. The Court has explained that §702 “requir[es] a litigant to show,
    at the outset of the case, that he is injured in fact by agency action.”
    Director, Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs v. Newport News
    Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co., 

. A litigant therefore
    cannot bring an APA claim unless and until she suffers an injury.
    While §702 equips injured parties with a cause of action, §704 provides
    that judicial review is available in most cases only for “final agency
    action.” Bennett v. Spear, 

, 177–178. Reading §702 and
    §704 together, a plaintiff may bring an APA claim only after she is
    injured by final agency action.
       To determine whether Corner Post’s APA claim is timely, the Court
    must interpret §2401(a), which provides that civil actions against the
    United States “shall be barred unless the complaint is filed within six
    years after the right of action first accrues.” The Board says an APA
    claim “accrues” under §2401(a) when agency action is “final” for pur-
    poses of §704; the claim can accrue for purposes of the statute of limi-
    tations even before the plaintiff suffers an injury. The Court disagrees.
    A right of action “accrues” when the plaintiff has a “complete and pre-
    sent cause of action,” which is when she has the right to “file suit and
    obtain relief.” Green v. Brennan, 

. Because an APA
    plaintiff may not file suit and obtain relief until she suffers an injury
    from final agency action, the statute of limitations does not begin to
    run until she is injured. Pp. 4–6.
       (b) Congress enacted §2401(a) in 1948, two years after it enacted the
    APA. Section 2401(a)’s predecessor was the statute-of-limitations pro-
    vision for the Little Tucker Act, which provided for district court juris-
    diction over certain claims against the United States. When Congress
    revised and recodified the Judicial Code in 1948, it converted the Little
    Tucker Act’s statute of limitations into §2401(a)’s general statute of
    limitations for all suits against the Government. But Congress contin-
    ued to start the statute of limitations period when the right “accrues.”
    Compare 

 (“after the right accrued for which the claim is
    made”) with §2401(a) (“after the right of action first accrues”).
       “Accrue” had a well-settled meaning in 1948, as it does now: A “right
    accrues when it comes into existence,” United States v. Lindsay, 

, 569—i.e., “when the plaintiff has a complete and present
    cause of action,” Gabelli v. SEC, 

. This definition
    has appeared “in dictionaries from the 19th century up until today,”
    which explain that a cause of action accrues when a suit may be main-
    tained thereon. 

. Thus, a cause of action does not
    become complete and present—it does not accrue—“until the plaintiff
    can file suit and obtain relief.” Bay Area Laundry and Dry Cleaning
                    Cite as: 

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                               Syllabus

Pension Trust Fund v. Ferbar Corp. of Cal., 

. Con-
temporaneous legal dictionaries explained that a claim does not “ac-
crue” as soon as the defendant acts, but only after the plaintiff suffers
the injury required to press her claim in court.
   The Court’s precedent treats this definition of accrual as the “stand-
ard rule for limitations periods,” Green, 

, and the
Court has “repeatedly recognized that Congress legislates against”
this standard rule, Graham County Soil & Water Conservation Dist. v.
United States ex rel. Wilson, 

. Conversely, the Court
has “reject[ed]” the possibility that a “limitations period commences at
a time when the [plaintiff] could not yet file suit” as “inconsistent with
basic limitations principles.” Bay Area Laundry, 

.
The Court will not reach such a conclusion “in the absence of any such
indication in the text of the limitations period.” Green, 

. Departing from the traditional rule is particularly inappropriate
here because contemporaneous statutes demonstrate that Congress in
1948 knew how to create a limitations period that begins with the de-
fendant’s action instead of the plaintiff’s injury.
   The Board would have this Court interpret §2401(a) as a defendant-
protective statute of repose that begins to run when agency action be-
comes final. A statute of repose “puts an outer limit on the right to
bring a civil action” that is “measured. . . from the date of the last cul-
pable act or omission of the defendant.” CTS Corp. v. Waldburger, 

, 8. But §2401(a)’s plaintiff-focused language makes it a “stat-
ute of limitations,” which—in contradistinction to statutes of repose—
are “based on the date when the claim accrued.” Id., at 7–8. Pp. 6–10.
   (c) The Board’s arguments to the contrary lack merit. Pp. 10–23.
      (1) The Board points to the many specific statutory review provi-
sions that start the clock at finality, contending that such statutes re-
flect a standard administrative-law practice of starting the limitations
period when “any proper plaintiff ” can challenge the final agency ac-
tion. But unlike the specific review provisions that the Board cites,
§2401(a) does not refer to the date of the agency action’s “entry” or
“promulgat[ion]”; it says “right of action first accrues.” That textual
difference matters. The latter language reflects a statute of limita-
tions and the former a statute of repose. Moreover, the specific review
provisions illustrate that Congress has sometimes employed the
Board’s preferred final-agency-action rule—but did not do so in
§2401(a). As the Court observed in Rotkiske v. Klemm, it is “particu-
larly inappropriate” to read language into a statute of limitations
“when, as here, Congress has shown that it knows how to adopt the
omitted language or provision.” 

, 14. Moreover, most of the
finality-focused statutes that the Board cites came after §2401(a) was
enacted in 1948. These other, textually distinct statutes therefore do
4        CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS

                                   Syllabus

    not establish a background presumption that the limitations period for
    facial challenges to agency rules begins when the rule is final. Given
    the settled, plaintiff-centric meaning of “right of action first accrues”
    in 1948—not to mention in the Little Tucker Act before it—the Board
    cannot “displace” this “standard rule” for limitations periods. Green,
    

.
       While the Board argues that §2401(a) should not be interpreted to
    adopt a “challenger-by-challenger” approach, the standard accrual
    rule that §2401(a) exemplifies is plaintiff specific. The Board reads
    §2401(a) as if it says “the complaint is filed within six years after a
    right of action [i.e., anyone’s right of action] first accrues”—which it
    does not say. Rather, §2401(a)’s text focuses on when the specific
    plaintiff had the right to sue: It says “the complaint is filed within six
    years after the right of action first accrues.” (Emphasis added). And
    the Court has explained that the traditional accrual rule looks to when
    the plaintiff—this particular plaintiff—has a complete and present
    cause of action. See Green, 

. No precedent supports
    the Board’s hypothetical “when could someone else have sued” sort of
    inquiry.
       Importing the Board’s special administrative-law rule into §2401(a)
    would create a defendant-focused rule for agency suits while retaining
    the traditional challenger-specific accrual rule for other suits against
    the United States. That would give the same statutory text—“right of
    action first accrues”—different meanings in different contexts, even
    though those words had a single, well-settled meaning when Congress
    enacted §2401(a). The Court “will not infer such an odd result in the
    absence of any such indication in the text of the limitations period.”
    Green, 

. Pp. 10–16.
         (2) The Board maintains that §2401(a)’s tolling provision—which
    provides that “[t]he action of any person under legal disability or be-
    yond the seas at the time the claim accrues may be commenced within
    three years after the disability ceases”—“reflects Congress’s under-
    standing that a claim can ‘accrue[ ]’ for purposes of Section 2401(a)”
    even when a person is unable to sue. Brief for Respondent 24. While
    true, the tolling exception applies when the plaintiff had a complete
    and present cause of action after he was injured but his legal disability
    or absence from the country prevented him from bringing a timely suit.
    The exception sheds no light on when the clock started for Corner Post.
    P. 16.
         (3) The Court’s precedents in Reading Co. v. Koons, 

,
    and Crown Coat Front Co. v. United States, 

, do not sup-
    port the Board’s unusual interpretation of “accrual.” In Koons, the
    Court held that a statutory wrongful-death claim accrued upon the
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                                 Syllabus

  death of the employee, not on the appointment of an estate adminis-
  trator, even though the latter was the “only person authorized by the
  statute to maintain the action.” Koons, 

. The Board
  interprets Koons to hold that a claim accrued at a time when no plain-
  tiff could sue, just as it says Corner Post’s claim “accrued” before it
  could sue. But in Koons, the beneficiaries on whose behalf any admin-
  istrator would seek relief—the “real parties in interest”—had the right
  to “procure the action” after the employee died. Given this unique con-
  text, Koons does not contradict the proposition that a claim generally
  accrues when the plaintiff has a complete and present cause of action.
  Next, the Board relies on dicta in Crown Coat to support its contention
  that the word “accrues” can take on different meanings in different
  contexts. But the Board misreads Crown Coat, which did not suggest
  that the words “right of action first accrues” in a single statute should
  mean different things in different contexts. Instead, the Court inter-
  preted §2401(a)—the very statute at issue here—to embody the tradi-
  tional rule that a claim accrues when the plaintiff has the right to
  bring suit in court. Pp. 16–20.
        (4) Finally, the Board raises policy concerns. It emphasizes that
  agencies and regulated parties need the finality of a 6-year cutoff, and
  that successful facial challenges filed after six years upset the reliance
  interests of those that have long operated under existing rules. But
  “pleas of administrative inconvenience . . . never ‘justify departing
  from the statute’s clear text.’ ” Niz-Chavez v. Garland, 

 (quoting Pereira v. Sessions, 

). Congress could
  have chosen different language in §2401(a) or created a general statute
  of repose for agencies, but it did not. In any event, the Board’s policy
  concerns are overstated because regulated parties may always chal-
  lenge a regulation as exceeding the agency’s statutory authority in en-
  forcement proceedings against them. Moreover, there are significant
  interests supporting the plaintiff-centric accrual rule, including the
  APA’s “basic presumption” of judicial review, Abbott Labs., 

, and our “deep-rooted historic tradition that everyone should
  have his own day in court,” Richards v. Jefferson County, 

. Pp. 20–23.

, reversed and remanded.

  BARRETT, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which in which ROB-
ERTS, C. J., and THOMAS, ALITO, GORSUCH, and KAVANAUGH, JJ., joined.
KAVANAUGH, J., filed a concurring opinion. JACKSON, J., filed a dissenting
opinion, in which SOTOMAYOR, J., and KAGAN, J., joined.
                        Cite as: 

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                             Opinion of the Court

     NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the
     United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of
     Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C. 20543,
     [email protected], of any typographical or other formal errors.


SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
                                   _________________

                                   No. 22–1008
                                   _________________


     CORNER POST, INC., PETITIONER v. BOARD
        OF GOVERNORS OF THE FEDERAL
              RESERVE SYSTEM
 ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF
           APPEALS FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT
                                  [July 1, 2024]

   JUSTICE BARRETT delivered the opinion of the Court.
   The default statute of limitations for suits against the
United States requires “the complaint [to be] filed within
six years after the right of action first accrues.” 

(a). We must decide when a claim brought under the
Administrative Procedure Act “accrues” for purposes of this
provision. The answer is straightforward. A claim accrues
when the plaintiff has the right to assert it in court—and in
the case of the APA, that is when the plaintiff is injured by
final agency action.
                             I
  Corner Post is a truckstop and convenience store located
in Watford City, North Dakota. It was incorporated in
2017, and in 2018, it opened for business. Like most mer-
chants, Corner Post accepts debit cards as a form of pay-
ment. While convenient for customers, debit cards are
costly for merchants: Every transaction requires them to
pay an “interchange fee” to the bank that issued the card.
The amount of the fee is set by the payment networks, like
Visa and Mastercard, that process the transaction between
2     CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS

                     Opinion of the Court

the banks of merchants and cardholders. The cost quickly
adds up. Since it opened, Corner Post has paid hundreds of
thousands of dollars in interchange fees—which has meant
higher prices for its customers.
   Interchange fees have long been a sore point for mer-
chants. For many years, payment networks had free rein
over the fee amount—and because they used the promise of
per-transaction profit to compete for the banks’ business,
they had significant incentive to raise the fees. Mer-
chants—who would lose customers if they declined debit
cards—had little choice but to pay whatever the networks
charged. Left unregulated, interchange fees ballooned.
   Congress eventually stepped in. The Durbin Amendment
to the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Pro-
tection Act of 2010 tasks the Federal Reserve Board with
setting “standards for assessing whether the amount of any
interchange transaction fee . . . is reasonable and propor-
tional to the cost incurred by the issuer with respect to the
transaction.” 

, 15 U. S. C. §1693o–2(a)(3)(A).
Discharging this duty, the Board promulgated Regulation
II, which sets a maximum interchange fee of $0.21 per
transaction plus .05% of the transaction’s value. See Debit
Card Interchange Fees and Routing, 

,
43420 (2011). The Board published the rule on July 20,
2011.
   Four months later, a group of retail-industry trade asso-
ciations and individual retailers sued the Board, arguing
that Regulation II allows costs that the statute does not.
See NACS v. Board of Governors of FRS, 

, 95–96 (DC 2013). The District Court agreed, 

 at 99–
109, but the D. C. Circuit reversed, concluding “that the
Board’s rules generally rest on reasonable constructions of
the statute,” NACS v. Board of Governors of FRS, 

 (2014).
   Corner Post, of course, did not exist when the Board
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                      Opinion of the Court

adopted Regulation II or even during the D. C. Circuit liti-
gation. But after opening its doors, it too became frustrated
by interchange fees, and in 2021, joined a suit brought
against the Board under the Administrative Procedure Act
(APA). The complaint alleges that Regulation II is unlawful
because it allows payment networks to charge higher fees
than the statute permits. See 

(2)(A), (C).
   The District Court dismissed the suit as barred by 

(a), the applicable statute of limitations, 

, *7–*9 (ND, Mar. 11, 2022), and the Eighth Cir-
cuit affirmed, North Dakota Retail Assn. v. Board of Gover-
nors of FRS, 

 (2022). Following other Circuits,
it distinguished between “facial” challenges to a rule (like
Corner Post’s challenge to Regulation II) and challenges to
a rule “as-applied” to a particular party. 

 at 640–641.
The Eighth Circuit held that “when plaintiffs bring a facial
challenge to a final agency action, the right of action ac-
crues, and the limitations period begins to run, upon publi-
cation of the regulation.” 

. On this view,
§2401(a)’s 6-year limitations period began in 2011, when
the Board published Regulation II, and expired in 2017, be-
fore Corner Post swiped its first debit card. See id., at 643.
Corner Post’s suit was therefore too late.
   The Eighth Circuit’s decision deepened a circuit split over
when §2401(a)’s statute of limitations begins to run for APA
suits challenging agency action. At least six Circuits now
hold that the limitations period for “facial” APA challenges
begins on the date of final agency action—e.g., when the
rule was promulgated—regardless of when the plaintiff was
injured. See, e.g., id., at 641; Wind River Min. Corp. v.
United States, 

 (CA9 1991); Dunn-
McCampbell Royalty Interest, Inc. v. National Park Serv.,

, 1287 (CA5 1997); Harris v. FAA, 

, 1009–1010 (CADC 2004); Hire Order Ltd. v.
Marianos, 

 (CA4 2012); Odyssey Logistics
& Tech. Corp. v. Iancu, 

, 1111–1112 (CA Fed.
4     CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS

                        Opinion of the Court

2020). By contrast, the Sixth Circuit has stated a generally
applicable rule that §2401(a)’s limitations period begins
when the plaintiff is injured by agency action, even if that
injury did not occur until many years after the action be-
came final. Herr v. United States Forest Serv., 

, 820–822 (2015) (“When a party first becomes aggrieved
by a regulation that exceeds an agency’s statutory authority
more than six years after the regulation was promulgated,
that party may challenge the regulation without waiting for
enforcement proceedings” (emphasis deleted)). We granted
certiorari to resolve the split. 

 (2023).
                                II
   Three statutory provisions control our analysis: 

 and §704, the relevant APA provisions, and 

(a), the relevant statute of limitations. The APA pro-
visions grant Corner Post a cause of action subject to cer-
tain conditions, and §2401(a) sets the window within which
Corner Post can assert its claim.
   Section 702 authorizes persons injured by agency action
to obtain judicial review by suing the United States or one
of its agencies, officers, or employees. See Abbott Laborato-
ries v. Gardner, 

, 140–141 (1967). It provides
that “[a] person suffering legal wrong because of agency ac-
tion, or adversely affected or aggrieved by agency action
within the meaning of a relevant statute, is entitled to judi-
cial review thereof.” 

. We have explained
that §702 “requir[es] a litigant to show, at the outset of the
case, that he is injured in fact by agency action.” Director,
Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs v. Newport News
Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co., 

 (1995).
Thus, a litigant cannot bring an APA claim unless and until
she suffers an injury.1

——————
 1 The dissent asserts that §702 “restricts who may challenge agency
                      Cite as: 

 (2024)                      5

                           Opinion of the Court

    While §702 equips injured parties with a cause of action,
§704 limits the agency actions that are subject to judicial
review. Unless another statute makes the agency’s action
reviewable (and none does for Regulation II), judicial re-
view is available only for “final agency action.” §704. In
most cases, then, a plaintiff can only challenge an action
that “mark[s] the consummation of the agency’s deci-
sionmaking process” and is “one by which rights or obliga-
tions have been determined, or from which legal conse-
quences will flow.” Bennett v. Spear, 

, 177–
178 (1997) (internal quotation marks omitted). Note that
§702’s injury requirement and §704’s finality requirement
work hand in hand: Each is a “necessary, but not by itself
. . . sufficient, ground for stating a claim under the APA.”
Herr, 

.
    The applicable statute of limitations, 

(a), contains the language we must interpret: “[E]very
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.” (Emphasis added.) This
provision applies generally to suits against the United
States unless the timing provision of a more specific statute
displaces it. See, e.g., 

(b) (deadline to chal-
lenge certain agency actions under the Clean Water Act).
    The Board contends that an APA claim “accrues” when
agency action is “final” for purposes of §704—injury, it says,


——————
action,” yet its injury requirement “says nothing about” the cause of ac-
tion or elements of the claim. Post, at 16. But surely the dissent does
not mean to suggest that an uninjured person may bring an APA claim.
Whether one calls injury a restriction on who may sue or an element of
the cause of action, the relevant, undisputed point is that a plaintiff can-
not sue under the APA unless she is “injured in fact by agency action.”
Newport News, 

.
6      CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS

                          Opinion of the Court

is necessary for the suit but irrelevant to the statute of lim-
itations.2 We disagree. A right of action “accrues” when the
plaintiff has a “complete and present cause of action”—i.e.,
when she has the right to “file suit and obtain relief.” Green
v. Brennan, 

 (2016) (internal quotation
marks omitted). An APA plaintiff does not have a complete
and present cause of action until she suffers an injury from
final agency action, so the statute of limitations does not
begin to run until she is injured.
                              III
   Congress enacted §2401(a) in 1948, two years after it en-
acted the APA. See 

. Section 2401(a)’s prede-
cessor was the statute-of-limitations provision for the Little
Tucker Act, which gave district courts jurisdiction over non-
tort monetary claims not exceeding $10,000 against the
United States. See §24, 

 (“That no suit against
the Government of the United States shall be allowed under
this paragraph unless the same shall have been brought
within six years after the right accrued for which the claim
is made”); Brief for Professor Aditya Bamzai et al. as Amici
Curiae 5–6. When Congress revised and recodified the Ju-
dicial Code in 1948, it converted the Little Tucker Act’s stat-
ute of limitations into a general statute of limitations for all
——————
  2 The Board leaves open the possibility that someone could bring an as-

applied challenge to a rule when the agency relies on that rule in enforce-
ment proceedings against that person, even if more than six years have
passed since the rule’s promulgation. But Corner Post, as a merchant
rather than a payment network, is not regulated by Regulation II—so it
will never be the target of an enforcement action in which it could chal-
lenge that rule. JUSTICE KAVANAUGH asserts that “Corner Post can ob-
tain relief in this case only because the APA authorizes vacatur of agency
rules.” Post, at 1 (concurring opinion). Whether the APA authorizes va-
catur has been subject to thoughtful debate by Members of this Court.
See, e.g., United States v. Texas, 

, 693–702 (2023)
(GORSUCH, J., concurring in judgment). We took this case only to decide
how §2401(a)’s statute of limitations applies to APA claims. We therefore
assume without deciding that vacatur is available under the APA.
                  Cite as: 

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                      Opinion of the Court

suits against the Government—replacing “under this para-
graph” with “every civil action against the United States.”
But Congress continued to start the 6-year limitations pe-
riod when the right “accrues.” Compare 

 (“af-
ter the right accrued for which the claim is made”) with
§2401(a) (“after the right of action first accrues”).
   In 1948, as now, “accrue” had a well-settled meaning: A
“right accrues when it comes into existence,” United States
v. Lindsay, 

 (1954)—i.e., “ ‘when the plain-
tiff has a complete and present cause of action,’ ” Gabelli v.
SEC, 

 (2013) (quoting Wallace v. Kato,

 (2007)). This definition has appeared “in
dictionaries from the 19th century up until today.” Gabelli,

. Legal dictionaries in the 1940s and 1950s
uniformly explained that a cause of action “ ‘accrues’ when
a suit may be maintained thereon.” Black’s Law Dictionary
37 (4th ed. 1951) (Black’s); see also, e.g., Ballentine’s Law
Dictionary 15–16 (2d ed. 1948) (Ballentine’s) (“[A]ccrual of
cause of action” defined as the “coming or springing into ex-
istence of a right to sue” (boldface deleted)). Thus, we have
explained that a cause of action “does not become ‘complete
and present’ for limitations purposes”—it does not accrue—
“until the plaintiff can file suit and obtain relief.” Bay Area
Laundry and Dry Cleaning Pension Trust Fund v. Ferbar
Corp. of Cal., 

 (1997).
   Importantly, contemporaneous dictionaries also ex-
plained that a cause of action accrues “on [the] date that
damage is sustained and not [the] date when causes are set
in motion which ultimately produce injury.” Black’s 37.
“[I]f an act is not legally injurious until certain conse-
quences occur, it is not the mere doing of the act that gives
rise to a cause of action, but the subsequent occurrence of
damage or loss as the consequence of the act, and in such
case no cause of action accrues until the loss or damage oc-
curs.” Ballentine’s 16 (emphasis added). Thus, when Con-
gress used the phrase “right of action first accrues” in
8     CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS

                       Opinion of the Court

§2401(a), it was well understood that a claim does not “ac-
crue” as soon as the defendant acts, but only after the plain-
tiff suffers the injury required to press her claim in court.
   Our precedent treats this definition of accrual as the
“standard rule for limitations periods.” Green, 

. “We have repeatedly recognized that Congress legis-
lates against the ‘standard rule that the limitations period
commences when the plaintiff has a complete and present
cause of action.’ ” Graham County Soil & Water Conserva-
tion Dist. v. United States ex rel. Wilson, 

(2005) (quoting Bay Area Laundry, 

). It is
“unquestionably the traditional rule” that “[a]bsent other
indication, a statute of limitations begins to run at the time
the plaintiff ‘has the right to apply to the court for relief.’ ”
TRW Inc. v. Andrews, 

 (2001) (Scalia, J.,
concurring in judgment) (quoting 1 H. Wood, Limitation of
Actions §122a, p. 684 (rev. 4th ed. 1916) (Wood)). Con-
versely, we have “reject[ed]” the possibility that a “limita-
tions period commences at a time when the [plaintiff] could
not yet file suit” as “inconsistent with basic limitations prin-
ciples.” Bay Area Laundry, 

.
   This traditional rule constitutes a strong background pre-
sumption. While the “standard rule can be displaced such
that the limitations period begins to run before a plaintiff
can file a suit,” we “ ‘will not infer such an odd result in the
absence of any such indication’ in the text of the limitations
period.” Green, 

 (quoting Reiter v. Cooper,

 (1993)). “Unless Congress has told us
otherwise in the legislation at issue, a cause of action does
not become ‘complete and present’ for limitations purposes
until the plaintiff can file suit and obtain relief.” Bay Area
Laundry, 

.
   There is good reason to conclude that Congress codified
the traditional accrual rule in §2401(a). Nothing “in the
text of [§2401(a)’s] limitations period” gives any indication
that it begins to run before the plaintiff has a complete and
                  Cite as: 

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                      Opinion of the Court

present cause of action. Green, 

. Rather,
§2401(a) uses standard language that had a well-settled
meaning in 1948: “right of action first accrues.” Moreover,
Congress knew how to depart from the traditional rule to
create a limitations period that begins with the defendant’s
action instead of the plaintiff ’s injury: Just six years before
it enacted §2401(a), Congress passed the Emergency Price
Control Act of 1942, which required challenges to Office of
Price Administration actions to be filed “[w]ithin a period of
sixty days after the issuance of any regulation or order.”
§203(a), 

 (emphasis added); see also Administra-
tive Orders Review Act (Hobbs Act), §4, 

 (1950)
(allowing petitions for review “within sixty days after entry
of ” a “final order reviewable under this Act”). Section
2401(a), by contrast, stuck with the standard accrual lan-
guage.
   Section 2401(a) thus operates as a statute of limitations
rather than a statute of repose. “[A] statute of limitations
creates ‘a time limit for suing in a civil case, based on the
date when the claim accrued.’ ” CTS Corp. v. Waldburger,

, 7–8 (2014) (quoting Black’s 1546 (9th ed. 2009)).
That describes §2401(a), with its reference to when the
right of action “accrues,” to a tee. “A statute of repose, on
the other hand, puts an outer limit on the right to bring a
civil action” that is “measured not from the date on which
the claim accrues but instead from the date of the last cul-
pable act or omission of the defendant.” 573 U. S., at 8.
Such statutes bar “ ‘any suit that is brought after a specified
time since the defendant acted . . . even if this period ends
before the plaintiff has suffered a resulting injury.’ ” Ibid.
(quoting Black’s 1546). That describes statutes like the
Hobbs Act, which sets a filing deadline of 60 days from the
“entry” of the agency order. 

. Statutes of lim-
itations “require plaintiffs to pursue diligent prosecution of
known claims”; statutes of repose reflect a “legislative judg-
ment that a defendant should be free from liability after the
10     CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS

                           Opinion of the Court

legislatively determined period of time.” CTS Corp., 573
U. S., at 8–9 (internal quotation marks omitted).3 The
Board asks us to interpret §2401(a) as a defendant-
protective statute of repose that begins to run when agency
action becomes final. But §2401(a)’s plaintiff-focused lan-
guage makes it an accrual-based statute of limitations.
                         *     *     *
  Section 2401(a) embodies the plaintiff-centric traditional
rule that a statute of limitations begins to run only when
the plaintiff has a complete and present cause of action. Be-
cause injury, not just finality, is required to sue under the
APA, Corner Post’s cause of action was not complete and
present until it was injured by Regulation II. Therefore, its
suit is not barred by the statute of limitations.
                             IV
   The Board concedes that some claims accrue for purposes
of §2401(a) when the plaintiff has a complete and present
cause of action—in other words, it admits that “accrue” car-
ries its usual meaning for some claims. But it argues that
facial challenges to agency rules are different, accruing
when agency action is final rather than when the plaintiff
can assert her claim. See also post, at 5–6 (JACKSON, J.,
dissenting). The Board raises several arguments to support
its position, but none work.
                             A
  The Board puts the most weight on the many specific
statutory review provisions that start the clock at finality.
See also post, at 12–15 (JACKSON, J., dissenting). The

——————
  3 Perplexingly, the dissent rejects this distinction, post, at 10–11, even

though our precedent clearly recognizes it: CTS Corp. acknowledged the
“substantial overlap between the policies of the two types of statute” but
concluded nonetheless that “each has a distinct purpose and each is tar-
geted at a different actor.” 573 U. S., at 8.
                  Cite as: 

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                      Opinion of the Court

Hobbs Act, for example, requires persons aggrieved by cer-
tain final orders and regulations of the Federal Communi-
cations Commission, Secretary of Agriculture, and Secre-
tary of Transportation, among others, to petition for review
“within 60 days after [the] entry” of the final agency action.

, 2344; see also, e.g., 

(f )
(suits challenging Occupational Safety and Health Admin-
istration standards must be filed “prior to the sixtieth day
after such standard is promulgated”). The Board contends
that such statutes reflect a standard administrative-law
practice of starting the limitations period when “any proper
plaintiff ” can challenge the final agency action. Brief for
Respondent 9. There is “no sound basis,” it insists, “for in-
stead applying a challenger-by-challenger approach to cal-
culate the limitations period on APA claims.” Ibid.; see also
post, at 9–10 (JACKSON, J., dissenting).
                              1
   This argument hits the immutable obstacle of §2401(a)’s
text. Unlike the specific review provisions that the Board
cites, §2401(a) does not refer to the date of the agency ac-
tion’s “entry” or “promulgat[ion]”; it says “right of action
first accrues.” That textual difference matters. To begin,
the latter language reflects a statute of limitations and the
former a statute of repose. Moreover, the specific review
provisions actually undercut the Board’s argument, be-
cause they illustrate that Congress has sometimes em-
ployed the Board’s preferred final-agency-action rule—but
did not do so in §2401(a). As we observed in Rotkiske v.
Klemm, it is “particularly inappropriate” to read language
into a statute of limitations “when, as here, Congress has
shown that it knows how to adopt the omitted language or
provision.” 

, 14 (2019).
   In arguing to the contrary, post, at 12–16, the dissent ig-
nores the textual differences between §2401(a) and finality-
12    CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS

                      Opinion of the Court

focused specific review provisions—flouting Rotkiske’s ad-
monition to heed such distinctions. According to the dis-
sent, we cannot expect “Congress to have explicitly stated
that accrual in §2401(a) starts at the point of final agency
action when §2401(a) is a residual provision” that applies
generally. Post, at 15. But §2401(a)’s text reflects a choice:
Congress took the Little Tucker Act’s plaintiff-focused lim-
itations period—which began when “the right accrued for
which the claim is made,” 36 Stat. 1093—and made it gen-
erally applicable to “every” suit against the United States,
§2401(a); see Part III, supra. Congress could have created
a separate residual provision for suits challenging agency
action and pegged its limitations period to the moment of
finality, using statutes like the Emergency Price Control
Act as a model. It chose a different path.
   Undeterred, the dissent insists that by the time §2401(a)
was enacted, Congress had “uniformly expressed [a] judg-
ment” that the limitations period for agency suits should be
defendant-centric and start with finality. Post, at 14.
Again, this argument disregards §2401(a)’s text in favor of
alleged congressional intent divined from other statutes
with very different language. “As this Court has repeatedly
stated, the text of a law controls over purported legislative
intentions unmoored from any statutory text”; the Court
“may not ‘replace the actual text with speculation as to Con-
gress’ intent.’ ” Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta, 

 (2022) (quoting Magwood v. Patterson, 

 (2010)).
   In any event, the dissent misunderstands the history.
See post, at 14, and n. 6. (Notably, the Board itself does not
make this argument.) While the Emergency Price Control
Act of 1942 preceded the APA (1946) and §2401(a) (1948),
most finality-focused limitations provisions, like the Hobbs
Act (1950), came later. See post, at 12–13, and n. 5; e.g., 

(b)(1) (added by 

 (1978)). To con-
jure its supposed backdrop, the dissent cites a hodgepodge
                      Cite as: 

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                          Opinion of the Court

of other pre-1948 statutes that started the clock at finality.
Post, at 14, n. 6. But these statutes generally governed
challenges to orders adjudicating a party’s own rights—
what we today might call “as-applied” challenges. For ex-
ample, 

(a) provided a 30-day limitations pe-
riod for a meatpacker to appeal an order finding that the
packer “has violated or is violating any provision” of the
statute regulating business practices in the meatpacking
industry. 42 Stat. 161–162; see also, e.g., 

(c)
(persons required by a Federal Trade Commission order to
cease a business practice may obtain review of that order
within 60 days). Statutes like these do not contradict the
plaintiff-centric standard accrual rule, because a party sub-
ject to such an order suffers legally cognizable injury at the
same time that the order becomes final.4
   Thus, even if the “intention” Congress “expressed” in tex-
tually distinct statutes could overcome §2401(a)’s language,
post, at 14, the dissent’s history would not support its sup-
posed background presumption—that the limitations pe-
riod for facial challenges to regulations begins when the
rule becomes final even if the plaintiff does not yet have a
complete and present cause of action. Instead, the best
course, as always, is to stick with the ordinary meaning of
the text that actually applies, §2401(a). Given the settled,
plaintiff-centric meaning of “right of action first accrues” in
——————
  4 There is another reason to doubt the dissent’s supposed background

limitations principle for facial challenges to agency rules: In the 1940s,
“most administrative activity was adjudicative in nature”; agencies
“rarely, if ever, adopted sweeping regulations.” K. Hickman & R. Pierce,
1 Administrative Law §1.3, p. 26 (7th ed. 2024). The dissent errs by ex-
trapolating a general congressional intent that all agency suits be subject
to a finality-based limitations rule based on pre-1948 statutes that gov-
erned a subset of agency actions—adjudicative orders—and were enacted
before facial challenges to regulations became common. It is hard to see
how provisions governing when a party may challenge an order adjudi-
cating her own rights could set any kind of background rule for facial
APA challenges to generally applicable regulations.
14    CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS

                      Opinion of the Court

1948—not to mention in the Little Tucker Act—the dissent
cannot “displace” this “standard rule” with scattered cita-
tions to different, inapposite statutes. Green, 

.
                                2
   The standard accrual rule that §2401(a)’s limitations pe-
riod exemplifies is plaintiff specific—even if repose provi-
sions like the Hobbs Act eschew a “challenger-by-
challenger” approach. Brief for Respondent 9. The Board’s
rule would start the limitations period applicable to the
plaintiff not when she had a complete and present cause of
action but when the agency action was final and, theoreti-
cally, some other plaintiff was injured and could have sued.
But §2401(a)’s text focuses on a specific plaintiff: “the com-
plaint is filed within six years after the right of action first
accrues.” (Emphasis added.)
   The dissent disputes §2401(a)’s plaintiff specificity by
pointing out that it does not say “the plaintiff ’s right of ac-
tion first accrues.” Post, at 9. True, but it does use the def-
inite article “the” to link “the complaint” with “the right of
action.” So the most natural interpretation is that its limi-
tations period begins when the cause of action associated
with the complaint—the plaintiff ’s cause of action—is com-
plete. And while the dissent cites dictionary definitions of
“accrue” that mention “ ‘a right to sue,’ ” ibid., the statute’s
use of the definite article “the” takes precedence. The Board
and the dissent read §2401(a) as if it says “the complaint is
filed within six years after a right of action [i.e., anyone’s
right of action] first accrues”—which, of course, it does not.
   In fact, we have explained that the traditional accrual
rule looks to when “the plaintiff ”—this particular plain-
tiff—“has a complete and present cause of action.” Green,

 (internal quotation marks omitted; em-
phasis added). No precedent suggests that the traditional
rule contemplates the Board’s hypothetical “when could
                      Cite as: 

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                           Opinion of the Court

someone else have sued” sort of inquiry.5 Rather, the “stat-
ute of limitations begins to run at the time the plaintiff has
the right to apply to the court for relief.” TRW Inc., 

 (opinion of Scalia, J.) (internal quotation marks
omitted; emphasis added).6
   Importing the Board’s special administrative-law rule
into §2401(a) would create a defendant-focused rule for
agency suits while retaining the traditional challenger-
specific accrual rule for other suits against the United
States. That would give the same statutory text—“right of
action first accrues”—different meanings in different con-
texts, even though those words had a single, well-settled
meaning when Congress enacted §2401(a). See Part III, su-
pra. The Board’s interpretation would thereby decouple the
statute of limitations from any injury “such that the limita-
tions period begins to run before a plaintiff can file a suit”—
for some, but not all, suits governed by §2401(a). Green, 

. We “will not infer such an odd result in the
——————
    5 While the dissent attempts to cabin our precedent describing the

plaintiff-specific standard accrual rule, nothing in those cases suggests
that the rule is only plaintiff-specific for “plaintiff-specific causes of ac-
tion.” Post, at 10; see, e.g., Gabelli v. SEC, 

 (2013) (The
“ ‘standard rule’ ” that a “claim accrues ‘when the plaintiff has a complete
and present cause of action’ ” has “governed since the 1830s” and “ap-
pears in dictionaries from the 19th century up until today”). And regard-
less, the dissent’s assertion that “administrative-law claims” are not
“plaintiff specific,” post, at 6, is mystifying given that an APA plaintiff
cannot sue until she suffers an injury, see 

; n. 1, supra. By
emphasizing the plaintiff-agnostic aspects of facial challenges to agency
action, post, at 10, 16–18, the dissent conflates the defendant-focused
substance of an APA claim with its plaintiff-specific cause of action.
    6 Moreover, there may be cases where no one is injured and able to sue

at the time of final agency action—e.g., if the agency delays a rule’s en-
forcement—but the Board would still start the clock then. Cf. Toilet
Goods Assn., Inc. v. Gardner, 

, 162–166 (1967) (agency rule
was final but challenge was not yet ripe). So the Board’s position cannot
be reconciled even with a challenger-agnostic form of the traditional ac-
crual rule, which at least would require that someone have a complete
and present cause of action before the limitations period begins.
16    CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS

                     Opinion of the Court

absence of any such indication in the text of the limitations
period.” 

 (internal quotation marks omitted).
                              B
   Turning to §2401(a)’s text, the Board draws significance
from this sentence: “The action of any person under legal
disability or beyond the seas at the time the claim accrues
may be commenced within three years after the disability
ceases.” This language, the Board stresses, “necessarily re-
flects Congress’s understanding that a claim can ‘accrue[]’
for purposes of Section 2401(a)” even when a person is un-
able to sue. Brief for Respondent 24. True enough. It is a
mystery, however, why the Board finds this helpful. The
tolling exception applies when the plaintiff had a complete
and present cause of action after he was injured but his le-
gal disability or absence from the country “prevent[ed] him
from bringing a timely suit.” Goewey v. United States, 

, 

 (1979) (per curiam).
What matters for accrual is when the plaintiff had “the
right to apply to the court for relief,” not whether some ex-
ternal impediment prevented her from doing so. Wood
§122a, at 684 (emphasis added). The exception, therefore,
sheds no light on when the clock started ticking for Corner
Post—but it does show Congress’s concern for plaintiffs who
might lose a cause of action through no fault of their own.
                              C
   The Board also leans on our precedent—namely, Reading
Co. v. Koons, 

 (1926), and Crown Coat Front Co.
v. United States, 

 (1967)—to support its unu-
sual interpretation of “accrual.” See also post, at 6–9
(JACKSON, J., dissenting). Again, the Board comes up
empty.
   In Koons, we interpreted the statute of limitations under
the Federal Employers’ Liability Act, which barred actions
                  Cite as: 

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                      Opinion of the Court

brought more than two years after “ ‘the cause of action ac-
crued.’ ” 

 (quoting ch. 149, §6, 

).
We held that the plaintiff ’s wrongful-death claim accrued
when the employee died, even though the estate’s adminis-
trator was not appointed until later and the administrator
was “the only person authorized by the statute to maintain
the action.” 

. The Board interprets Koons
to hold that a claim accrued at a time when no plaintiff
could sue. Thus, the Board reasons, it is consistent with the
meaning of “accrue” to say that Corner Post’s claim “ac-
crued” before it could sue.
   The Board’s characterization of Koons is incomplete.
Koons explained that the administrator “acts only for the
benefit of persons specifically designated in the statute,”
and at the “time of death there are identified persons for
whose benefit the liability exists and who can start the ma-
chinery of the law in motion to enforce it, by applying for
the appointment of an administrator.” 

. If a ben-
eficiary sued in her individual capacity immediately after
the employee’s death, she could amend her suit to describe
herself as “executor or administrator of the decedent.” 

So “at the death of decedent, there are real parties in inter-
est who may procure the action to be brought.” 

 at 62–
63. While it is true that the claim accrued before any par-
ticular administrator was appointed, the beneficiaries on
whose behalf any administrator would seek relief—the
“real parties in interest”—had the right to “procure the ac-
tion” after the employee died. Given this unique context,
Koons does not contradict the proposition that a claim gen-
erally accrues when the plaintiff has a complete and pre-
sent cause of action.
   Nor does Crown Coat. That case concerned a contract
dispute in which a Government contractor sought an equi-
table adjustment to the payment it received. 

. The contract required the contractor to present its
claim to the contracting officer and Armed Services Board
18    CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS

                      Opinion of the Court

of Contract Appeals; its claim was “not subject to adjudica-
tion in the courts” until it was denied by the Board. 

. The question presented was whether §2401(a)’s stat-
ute of limitations began to run when the Board issued its
final determination or at an earlier date. Id., at 507.
   We held that the right of action first accrued when the
Board denied the contractor’s claim, because the contractor
had “the right to resort to the courts only upon the making
of that administrative determination.” Id., at 512. We ex-
plained that §2401(a)’s phrase “right of action” refers to “the
right to file a civil action in the courts against the United
States.” Id., at 511. Given the contract’s administrative-
exhaustion requirement, “the contractor’s claim was sub-
ject only to administrative, not judicial, determination in
the first instance”; the plaintiff was “not legally entitled to
ask the courts to adjudicate [its] claim as an original mat-
ter.” Id., at 511–512, 515. So its “claim or right to bring a
civil action against the United States” did not “matur[e]”
until the Board made its final decision. Id., at 514. Crown
Coat thus supports Corner Post: The Court interpreted
§2401(a) to embody the traditional rule that a claim accrues
when the plaintiff has the right to bring suit in court.
   Notwithstanding Crown Coat’s holding, the Board and
the dissent try to marshal support from its dicta. The Court
noted that it is hazardous “to define for all purposes when
a ‘cause of action’ first ‘accrues’ ”; it cautioned that those
words should be “ ‘interpreted in the light of the general
purposes of the statute and of its other provisions’ ” and the
“ ‘practical ends’ ” served by time limitations. Id., at 517
(quoting Koons, 

). Seizing on this language,
the Board insists that the word “accrues” is a chameleon,
taking on different meanings in different contexts—and in
the administrative-law context, a right of action “accrues”
when a regulation is final, full stop. See also post, at 6
(JACKSON, J., dissenting) (citing Crown Coat for the propo-
sition that “the word ‘accrues’ lacks any fixed meaning”).
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                           Opinion of the Court

   The Board and the dissent vastly overread—in fact, they
misread—Crown Coat. The Court did not suggest that the
same words “right of action first accrues” in a single statute
should mean different things in different contexts—which
is how the Board and the dissent would have us interpret
§2401(a). Rather, the Court made its observation in the
course of distinguishing §2401(a) from a statutory scheme
that departed from the traditional accrual rule.7 386 U. S.,
at 516–517. Moreover, as we have already explained, the
Court interpreted §2401(a)—the very statute at issue in
this case—to start the clock when the plaintiff is “legally
entitled” to file suit. Id., at 515. It also specifically rejected
the Government’s position that the time can run even be-
fore a plaintiff ’s “civil action against the United States ma-
tures.” Id., at 514; see also ibid. (noting that the Govern-
ment’s position “would have unfortunate impact”). We
therefore do not read Crown Coat’s “general purposes” lan-
guage to contradict either its holding or the “ ‘standard rule’
for limitations periods.” Green, 

.
   Even if Crown Coat’s dicta supported sapping “accrues”
of any “fixed meaning,” post, at 6 (JACKSON, J., dissenting),
this approach has been contravened by the weight of subse-

——————
   7 The Court distinguished the limitations scheme at issue in McMahon

v. United States, 

 (1951). That scheme involved two statutes:
one requiring “actions to be brought within two years after ‘the cause of
action arises’ ” and another “permit[ting] court action only if the claim
ha[d] been administratively disallowed, but set[ting] no time within
which a claim must be presented to the administrative body.” Crown
Coat, 386 U. S., at 516–517. The McMahon Court held that the claim
accrued not after the administrative disallowance that would enable the
plaintiff to sue in court, but at the time of the plaintiff ’s earlier injury.

. Crown Coat attributed this holding to the unique two-
statute context: “[P]ostpon[ing] the usual time of accrual of the cause of
action [i.e., the time of injury] until the date of disallowance” would have
“permit[ted] the claimant to postpone indefinitely the commencement of
the running of the statutory period.” 

; see McMahon,

.
20    CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS

                      Opinion of the Court

quent precedent. Our limitations cases from the last sev-
eral decades have instead emphasized the strength of the
traditional, plaintiff-centric accrual rule and demanded
that departures be justified by the statutory “text of the lim-
itations period.” Green, 

; see also, e.g., Gra-
ham County, 545 U. S., at 418–419 (explaining that in
Reiter v. Cooper, 

, the Court “declin[ed] to
countenance the ‘odd result’ that a federal cause of action
and statute of limitations arise at different times ‘absen[t]
. . . any such indication in the statute’ ”); Bay Area Laundry,

.
                               D
   Finally, the Board raises policy concerns. It emphasizes
that agencies and regulated parties need the finality of a 6-
year cutoff. After that point, facial challenges impose sig-
nificant burdens on agencies and courts. Moreover, if they
are successful, such challenges upset the reliance interests
of the agencies and regulated parties that have long oper-
ated under existing rules.        See also post, at 18–24
(JACKSON, J., dissenting).
   “[P]leas of administrative inconvenience . . . never ‘justify
departing from the statute’s clear text.’ ” Niz-Chavez v.
Garland, 

 (2021) (quoting Pereira v. Ses-
sions, 585 U. S 198, 217 (2018)). Congress could have cho-
sen different language in §2401(a) or created a general stat-
ute of repose for agencies. It did not.
   That is enough to dispatch the Board’s policy arguments,
but we add that its concerns are overstated. Put aside facial
challenges like Corner Post’s. Regulated parties “may al-
ways assail a regulation as exceeding the agency’s statutory
authority in enforcement proceedings against them” or “pe-
tition an agency to reconsider a longstanding rule and then
appeal the denial of that petition.” Herr, 803 F. 3d, at 821–
822. So even on the Board’s preferred interpretation, “[a]
federal regulation that makes it six years without being
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                          Opinion of the Court

contested does not enter a promised land free from legal
challenge.” 

. Likewise, the dissent imagines an
alternative reality of total finality that simply does not ex-
ist. See post, at 21–23.
   Moreover, the opportunity to challenge agency action
does not mean that new plaintiffs will always win or that
courts and agencies will need to expend significant re-
sources to address each new suit. Given that major regula-
tions are typically challenged immediately, courts enter-
taining later challenges often will be able to rely on binding
Supreme Court or circuit precedent. If neither this Court
nor the relevant court of appeals has weighed in, a court
may be able to look to other circuits for persuasive author-
ity. And if no other authority upholding the agency action
is persuasive, the court may have more work to do, but
there is all the more reason for it to consider the merits of
the newcomer’s challenge.8
   Turning to the other side of the policy ledger, the Board
slights the arguments supporting the plaintiff-centric ac-
crual rule. In addition to being compelled by §2401(a)’s
text, this rule vindicates the APA’s “basic presumption”
that anyone injured by agency action should have access to
judicial review. Abbott Labs., 387 U. S., at 140. It also re-
spects our “deep-rooted historic tradition that everyone

——————
  8 It also may be that some injuries can only be suffered by entities that

existed at the time of the challenged action. Corner Post suggests that
only parties that existed during the rulemaking process can claim to
have been injured by a “procedural” shortcoming, like a deficient notice
of proposed rulemaking. Reply Brief 18–19. We need not resolve that
issue here because there is no dispute that Corner Post proffered an in-
jury that does not depend on its having existed when the Board promul-
gated Regulation II: the rule’s alleged conflict with the Durbin Amend-
ment. The dissent’s observation that “the claims in this case are
procedural,” post, at 18, is confused. Even if some of Corner Post’s claims
might be procedural, its central claim—that the regulation violates the
statute—is a prototypical substantive challenge.
22     CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS

                           Opinion of the Court

should have his own day in court.” Richards v. Jefferson
County, 

 (1996) (internal quotation marks
omitted). Under the Board’s finality rule, only those fortu-
nate enough to suffer an injury within six years of a rule’s
promulgation may bring an APA suit. Everyone else—no
matter how serious the injury or how illegal the rule—has
no recourse.9
    The dissent also raises a host of policy arguments mas-
querading as “matter[s] of congressional intent.” Post, at
18–24. And it warns that today’s opinion will “devastate
the functioning of the Federal Government.” Post, at 23.
This claim is baffling—indeed, bizarre—in a case about a
statute of limitations. The Solicitor General, whose man-
date is to protect the interests of the Federal Government,
comes nowhere close to suggesting that a plaintiff-centric
interpretation of §2401(a) spells the end of the United
States as we know it. Perhaps the dissent believes that the
Code of Federal Regulations is full of substantively illegal
regulations vulnerable to meritorious challenges; or per-
haps it believes that meritless challenges will flood federal
courts that are too incompetent to reject them. We have
more confidence in both the Executive Branch and the Ju-
diciary. But we do agree with the dissent on one point:
“ ‘[T]he ball is in Congress’ court.’ ” Post, at 24 (quoting
Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 

(2007) (Ginsburg, J., dissenting)). Section 2401(a) is 75
years old. If it is a poor fit for modern APA litigation, the

——————
   9 Corner Post has no other way to obtain meaningful review of Regula-

tion II. Because Regulation II does not directly regulate it, it will never
be subject to enforcement actions in which it may challenge the rule’s
legality. See n. 2, supra. Nor is the ability to petition the Board for rule-
making to change Regulation II a sufficient substitute for de novo judi-
cial review of its lawfulness: The agency’s “discretionary decision to de-
cline to take new action” would be subject only to “deferential judicial
review.” PDR Network, LLC v. Carlton & Harris Chiropractic, Inc., 

 (2019) (KAVANAUGH, J., concurring in judgment).
                  Cite as: 

 (2024)                 23

                      Opinion of the Court

solution is for Congress to enact a distinct statute of limita-
tions for the APA.
                          *    *    *
   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. Because Corner Post filed suit within
six years of its injury, §2401(a) did not bar its challenge to
Regulation II. We reverse the Eighth Circuit’s judgment to
the contrary and remand the case for further proceedings
consistent with this opinion.

                                                   It is so ordered.
                  Cite as: 

 (2024)            1

                   KAVANAUGH, J., concurring

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
                          _________________

                          No. 22–1008
                          _________________


     CORNER POST, INC., PETITIONER v. BOARD
        OF GOVERNORS OF THE FEDERAL
              RESERVE SYSTEM
 ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF
           APPEALS FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT
                          [July 1, 2024]

  JUSTICE KAVANAUGH, concurring.
  I agree with the Court that a claim under the
Administrative Procedure Act accrues when the plaintiff is
injured by the challenged agency rule. I also agree with the
Court that today’s decision vindicates the APA’s “ ‘basic
presumption’ that anyone injured by agency action should
have access to judicial review.” Ante, at 21 (quoting Abbott
Laboratories v. Gardner, 

 (1967)).
  I write separately to explain a crucial additional point:
Corner Post can obtain relief in this case only because the
APA authorizes vacatur of agency rules.
  Corner Post challenged an agency rule that regulates the
fees that banks may charge. But Corner Post is not a bank
regulated by the rule. Rather, it is a business that must
pay the fees charged by the banks who are regulated by the
rule. Corner Post complains that the agency rule allows
banks to charge fees that are unreasonably high.
  Corner Post’s suit is a typical APA suit. An unregulated
plaintiff such as Corner Post often will sue under the APA
to challenge an allegedly unlawful agency rule that
regulates others but also has adverse downstream effects
on the plaintiff. In those cases, an injunction barring the
agency from enforcing the rule against the plaintiff would
not help the plaintiff, because the plaintiff is not regulated
2     CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS

                   KAVANAUGH, J., concurring

by the rule in the first place. Instead, the unregulated
plaintiff can obtain meaningful relief only if the APA
authorizes vacatur of the agency rule, thereby remedying
the adverse downstream effects of the rule on the
unregulated plaintiff.
   The APA empowers federal courts to “hold unlawful and
set aside agency action” that, as relevant here, is arbitrary
and capricious or is contrary to law. 

(2). The
Federal Government and the federal courts have long
understood §706(2) to authorize vacatur of unlawful agency
rules, including in suits by unregulated plaintiffs who are
adversely affected by an agency’s regulation of others.
   Recently, the Government has advanced a far-reaching
argument that the APA does not allow vacatur. See Brief
for Respondent 42; Brief for United States in United States
v. Texas, O. T. 2022, No. 22–58, pp. 40–44. Invoking a few
law review articles, the Government contends that the
APA’s authorization to “set aside” agency action does not
allow vacatur, but instead permits a court only to enjoin an
agency from enforcing a rule against the plaintiff.
   If the Government were correct on that point, Corner Post
could not obtain any relief in this suit because, to reiterate,
Corner Post is not regulated by the rule to begin with. And
the APA would supply no remedy for most other
unregulated but adversely affected parties who
traditionally have brought, and regularly still bring, APA
suits challenging agency rules.
   The Government’s position would revolutionize long-
settled administrative law—shutting the door on entire
classes of everyday administrative law cases.              The
Government’s newly minted position is both novel and
wrong. It “disregards a lot of history and a lot of law.” M.
Sohoni, The Past and Future of Universal Vacatur, 133
Yale L. J. 2305, 2311 (2024).
   The APA authorizes vacatur of agency rules; therefore,
Corner Post can obtain relief in this case.
                 Cite as: 

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                   KAVANAUGH, J., concurring

                               I
   Corner Post owns a truck stop and convenience store in
rural North Dakota. When a customer uses a debit card at
its business, Corner Post must pay a fee (known as an
interchange fee) to the bank that processes the customer’s
transaction.
   As the Court explains, the Dodd-Frank Act requires the
Federal Reserve Board to “prescribe regulations” for
assessing whether interchange fees are “reasonable and
proportional to the cost incurred” in processing a debit-card
transaction. 15 U. S. C. §1693o–2(a)(3)(A); see ante, at 2.
Pursuant to the Act, the Board has issued a rule that sets a
maximum fee of about 21 cents per transaction. 

, 43420 (2011). For convenience, I will refer to
that rule as the fee rule.
   Corner Post is not subject to the fee rule. Corner Post
does not charge interchange fees to its customers, and
Corner Post lacks any authority to set those fees. But
because Corner Post must pay the fees to banks, it is
affected by the agency’s rule setting the maximum fees that
banks may charge. In particular, Corner Post would be
harmed by a fee rule that allows unreasonably high fees
and would benefit from a fee rule that more strictly limits
the fees that banks may charge.
   The APA authorizes any person who has been “adversely
affected or aggrieved” by a “final agency action” to obtain
judicial review in federal district court. 

,
704. In an APA suit, the district court “shall” “hold
unlawful and set aside agency action” that is “arbitrary,
capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in
accordance with law.” §706(2)(A).
   Corner Post filed this APA suit because it believes that
the fee rule allows banks to charge unreasonably high fees.
In particular, Corner Post argues that the Board’s 21-cent
fee cap is unreasonably high and therefore arbitrary and
capricious under the APA. Corner Post asked the Federal
4      CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS

                       KAVANAUGH, J., concurring

District Court to vacate the fee rule on the ground that the
Board must more strictly regulate bank fees (in other
words, that the Board must set a lower cap on the fees that
banks may charge).
  Corner Post would not be able to obtain relief in its
lawsuit through any remedy other than vacatur. Corner
Post could not obtain relief through an injunction
forbidding the Board from enforcing the rule against it.
That is because the rule does not regulate Corner Post and
therefore is not and cannot be enforced against Corner Post
in the first place. Nor could Corner Post secure relief
through an injunction against banks; the APA does not
authorize suits against private parties.
  Corner Post instead needs a remedy that acts directly on
the fee rule—specifically, by vacating it. Indeed, without
vacatur, it is hard to imagine what kind of lawsuit Corner
Post could file.      At oral argument, the Government
ultimately seemed to acknowledge that reality and the
necessity of the vacatur remedy if Corner Post is to obtain
any relief in this case. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 76 (“it’s possible
that the only way to provide this party relief would be
vacatur”).1
                            II
  For Corner Post to obtain relief, an important question
therefore is whether the APA authorizes vacatur of
unlawful agency actions, including agency rules.
  The answer is yes—in light of the text and history of the
——————
  1 A plaintiff could not challenge the fee rule by suing to “compel agency

action” that is “unlawfully withheld or unreasonably delayed.” 

(1). The remedy of compelling agency action applies if an agency
fails to issue a required rule. But here, the Board issued a rule, and the
question is whether the rule set a reasonable fee cap. It would therefore
make little sense to say that the fee rule has been “withheld” or
“delayed.” Indeed, it seems that §706(1) has almost never been used to
challenge extant agency rules, as opposed to challenging the absence of
required rules.
                      Cite as: 

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                       KAVANAUGH, J., concurring

APA, the longstanding and settled precedent adhering to
that text and history, and the radical consequences for
administrative law and individual liberty that would ensue
if vacatur were suddenly no longer available.
   The text and history of the APA authorize vacatur. The
text directs courts to “set aside” unlawful agency actions. 

(2)(A). When Congress enacted the APA in
1946, the phrase “set aside” meant “cancel, annul, or
revoke.” Black’s Law Dictionary 1612 (3d ed. 1933); see also
Black’s Law Dictionary 1537 (4th ed. 1951) (same);
Bouvier’s Law Dictionary 1103 (W. Baldwin ed. 1926) (“To
annul; to make void; as, to set aside an award”). At that
time, it was common for an appellate court that reversed
the decision of a lower court to direct that the lower court’s
“judgment” be “set aside,” meaning vacated. E.g., Shawkee
Mfg. Co. v. Hartford-Empire Co., 

 (1944).
Likewise, Congress used the phrase “set aside” in many
pre-APA statutes that plainly contemplated the vacatur of
agency actions.2
   The     APA      incorporated     that     common      and
contemporaneous meaning of “set aside.” When a federal
court sets aside an agency action, the federal court vacates
that order—in much the same way that an appellate court
vacates the judgment of a trial court.
   The APA prescribes the same “set aside” remedy for all
categories of “agency action,” including agency adjudicative
orders and agency rules. §§551(13), 706(2). When a federal
court concludes that an agency adjudicative order is

——————
  2 See, e.g., Hepburn Act of 1906, ch. 3591, §5, 

, 592 (courts

could “enjoin, set aside, annul, or suspend any order or requirement of ”
the Interstate Commerce Commission); Securities Exchange Act of 1934,
ch. 404, §25(a), 

, 902 (authorizing courts “to affirm, modify,
and enforce or set aside [an] order” of the SEC); Federal Food, Drug, and
Cosmetic Act of 1938, ch. 675, §701(f )(3), 

, 1055–1056
(authorizing a court to “affirm the order” of the FDA, “or to set it aside
in whole or in part, temporarily or permanently”).
6     CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS

                   KAVANAUGH, J., concurring

unlawful, the court must vacate that order. Around the
time when Congress enacted the APA, the phrase “set
aside” the agency order meant vacate that order. See, e.g.,
United States v. L. A. Tucker Truck Lines, Inc., 

 (1952). And because federal courts must “set aside”
agency rules in the same way that they set aside agency
orders, successful challenges to agency rules must award
the same remedy. See M. Sohoni, The Power To Vacate a
Rule, 

, 1131–1134 (2020). In
short, to “set aside” a rule is to vacate it.
  Longstanding precedent reinforces the text. Over the
decades, this Court has affirmed countless decisions that
vacated agency actions, including agency rules. See, e.g.,
Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of Univ. of
Cal., 

, 36, and n. 7 (2020); Whitman v. American
Trucking Assns., Inc., 

 (2001); Board of
Governors, FRS v. Dimension Financial Corp., 

, 364–365 (1986).          Those decisions vacated the
challenged agency rules rather than merely providing
injunctive relief that enjoined enforcement of the rules
against the specific plaintiffs. See, e.g., Regents of Univ. of
Cal., 591 U. S., at 9 (holding that the rescission of a major
federal program “must be vacated”). And the D. C.
Circuit—which handles the lion’s share of the country’s
administrative law cases—has likewise long recognized
vacatur as the usual relief when a court holds that agency
rules are unlawful. See, e.g., National Mining Assn. v.
United States Army Corps of Engineers, 

 (CADC 1998). In the words of the D. C. Circuit:
“When a reviewing court determines that agency
regulations are unlawful, the ordinary result is that the
rules are vacated—not that their application to the
individual petitioners is proscribed.”           Harmon v.
Thornburgh, 

 (CADC 1989).
  Importantly, as Corner Post’s lawsuit shows, the
availability of vacatur determines not only the extent of the
                     Cite as: 

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                      KAVANAUGH, J., concurring

relief that courts may award in APA suits by regulated
parties, but also whether unregulated parties can obtain
relief under the APA at all. In most APA litigation brought
by unregulated but adversely affected parties, a plaintiff
can obtain relief only through vacatur of the adverse agency
action. Prohibiting courts from vacating agency actions
would essentially close the courthouse doors on those
unregulated plaintiffs—a radical change to administrative
law that would insulate a broad swath of agency actions
from any judicial review.3
  Vacatur is therefore essential to fulfill the “basic
presumption of judicial review” for parties who have been
“adversely affected or aggrieved” by federal agency action.
Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner, 

 (1967)
(quotation marks omitted). The Court has long applied that
“strong presumption” unless there is a “persuasive reason
to believe” that Congress intended to bar review of certain
actions. Bowen v. Michigan Academy of Family Physicians,

 (1986) (quotation marks omitted); see
also, e.g., Weyerhaeuser Co. v. United States Fish and
Wildlife Serv., 

, 22–23 (2018); Sackett v. EPA,

, 128–131 (2012). Eliminating the vacatur
remedy would contravene the strong Abbott Laboratories
presumption by insulating many agency rules from
meaningful judicial review (which perhaps is the
Government’s motivation for its recent campaign).
  The absence of vacatur would also create an asymmetry.
For example, without the vacatur remedy, a bank could still
challenge the Board’s regulation of interchange fees in a
suit for injunctive relief. The bank might argue that the fee
cap is too low and that the Board should be enjoined from
enforcing the cap against the bank—a result that would
——————
  3 Most of the recent academic and judicial discussion of this issue has

addressed suits by regulated parties. That discussion has largely missed
a major piece of the issue—suits by unregulated but adversely affected
parties.
8      CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS

                       KAVANAUGH, J., concurring

allow the bank to charge higher fees. But because Corner
Post is not subject to the Board’s regulation, it could not
contend that the fee cap is too high and that the Board
should be enjoined from keeping the cap so high. So Corner
Post would be precluded from suing even though the
allegedly unlawful regulation is causing it monetary
injury.4
                             III
  Eliminating vacatur as a remedy would terminate entire
classes of administrative litigation that have traditionally
been brought by unregulated parties.5
  One example is the wide range of administrative law
suits in which businesses target the allegedly unlawful
under-regulation of other businesses, such as their
——————
   4 Absent vacatur, the remedy for a regulated plaintiff would not

automatically extend to other regulated parties. For example, if a
district court issued an injunction that prevents the Board from
enforcing the fee rule against one bank, the Board would still be able to
enforce the fee rule against other banks. For those other banks to obtain
the same relief, they would need to either (i) file similar APA suits and
request similar injunctions or (ii) wait and see if the fee rule is
temporarily enjoined or held unlawful by either the relevant court of
appeals or this Court. In that respect, eliminating the vacatur remedy
would delay relief for many regulated parties. That said, in light of
vertical stare decisis, the consequences for regulated parties of
eliminating vacatur would not be as severe as the consequences for
unregulated parties. See Labrador v. Poe, 

, ___ (2024)
(KAVANAUGH, J., concurring in grant of stay) (slip op., at 8–9); cf. W.
Baude & S. Bray, Proper Parties, Proper Relief, 

,
183 (2023) (when the Supreme Court “holds a statute to be
unconstitutional or a rule to be unlawful, it may be as good as vacated”).
   5 This opinion focuses primarily on administrative litigation that arises

under the APA. But Congress has also enacted special statutory review
provisions that similarly authorize federal courts to “set aside” specific
agency actions. See, e.g., 15 U. S. C. §78y(a) (orders of the SEC); 16
U. S. C. §825l(b) (FERC); 

 (the FCC, the Atomic Energy
Commission, and other agencies). By arguing that the APA’s use of “set
aside” does not authorize vacatur, the Government implies that vacatur
is also unavailable under those similar review provisions.
                  Cite as: 

 (2024)             9

                   KAVANAUGH, J., concurring

competitors. For example, in National Credit Union
Administration v. First National Bank & Trust Co., several
banks challenged the decision of a federal agency to approve
a series of amendments to the charter of a federal credit
union, a competitor of the banks. 

, 484–485
(1998). The amendments were controversial because they
expanded the markets in which the credit union could
operate, thereby increasing competition against the banks.
The Court held that the banks could sue under the APA to
challenge the agency’s approval of those charter
amendments, and also that the agency’s approval of the
amendments was unlawful. Of course, the District Court
could remedy the banks’ harm only by vacating the
approval of the amendments. In short, for the plaintiff in
First National Bank to have a remedy, the APA must have
authorized vacatur.
  Those competitor suits are ubiquitous in administrative
law.     Some plaintiffs have challenged the favorable
classification of a competitor’s drugs or medical products,
see, e.g., American Bioscience, Inc. v. Thompson, 

 (CADC 2001); a research guideline that increased
competition for federal grants, see, e.g., Sherley v. Sebelius,

 (CADC 2010); and a competitor’s exemption
from a generally applicable rule, see, e.g., Regular Common
Carrier Conference v. United States, 

 (CADC
1986) (arose under the review provision in 

). The Court has consistently held that the plaintiffs
incurring those injuries are “adversely affected or aggrieved
by agency action” within the meaning of the APA. 

; see First Nat. Bank, 522 U. S., at 488, 499; Investment
Company Institute v. Camp, 

, 618–621 (1971);
Association of Data Processing Service Organizations, Inc.
v. Camp, 

 (1970). But such competitor
suits would be largely if not entirely eradicated if the APA
and similar statutory review provisions did not authorize
vacatur.
10    CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS

                   KAVANAUGH, J., concurring

   Suits where one business challenges the under-
regulation of another go well beyond competitor suits. One
example is the Court’s landmark decision in Motor Vehicle
Manufacturers Association of United States, Inc. v. State
Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., 

(1983). That case arose when several insurance companies
challenged a federal agency’s rescission of safety standards
for new motor vehicles. The Court held that the agency’s
decision to rescind those safety standards was subject to the
same degree of judicial review as the decision to issue the
standards in the first place. See 

 at 40–44. The Court
also concluded that the rescission of the safety standards
was arbitrary and capricious. See 

 at 44–57.
   At no point in that landmark opinion on the judicial
review of agency actions did the Court state (or need to
state) the obvious: Because the agency did not regulate the
insurers themselves, the insurers could obtain relief from
the downstream effects of the agency’s rescission of the
safety standards only if the insurers could obtain vacatur of
that rescission. The Court did not dwell on that remedial
point because the availability of vacatur was presumably
obvious to all involved. Only now—some 40 years later—
does the Government imply that the premise of State Farm
was mistaken.
   The Government’s new position would also largely
eliminate the common form of environmental litigation
where private citizens sue a federal agency based on the
externalities that an agency action is likely to produce.
Litigation often arises when a federal agency approves a
development project with potential effects on the
environment or on other property owners. Examples
include the construction of a new pipeline, see Delaware
Riverkeeper Network v. FERC, 

 (CADC
2014), or the mining of federal land, see WildEarth
Guardians v. Jewell, 

 (CADC 2013). In those
cases, the plaintiff generally cannot bring an APA suit
                  Cite as: 

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                   KAVANAUGH, J., concurring

against the developer, who is usually a private party. See
§704 (authorizing review of “agency action”). Instead, the
plaintiff typically sues the federal agency that approved the
development and asks a federal court to vacate that
approval.
   Some of those suits proceed under the APA; others
proceed under federal statutory review provisions that
similarly authorize courts to “set aside” agency action. See,
e.g., 15 U. S. C. §717r(b) (Natural Gas Act); 16 U. S. C.
§825l(b) (Federal Power Act). Regardless, all of those suits
depend on the availability of vacatur.
   Many APA suits similarly challenge federal emissions
limits or efficiency standards for cars, trucks, and other
sources of pollution. See, e.g., American Public Gas Assn.
v. Department of Energy, 

 (CADC 2023).
When a plaintiff alleges that an emissions limit does too
little to stop third parties from polluting the environment,
the plaintiff cannot bring an APA suit against the third
party. Rather, the plaintiff must sue the agency that
enacted the emissions limit. If the vacatur remedy were
unavailable, the agency that enacted the emissions limit
would never face litigation from unregulated parties
seeking stricter limits; the agency could face litigation only
from regulated parties seeking looser limits.
   Workers and their unions also regularly challenge agency
rules that rescind or loosen federal workplace safety
standards. See, e.g., Transportation Div. of Int’l Assn. of
Sheet Metal, Air, Rail, and Transp. Workers v. Federal
Railroad Admin., 

 (CA9 2021) (railroad
industry); United Steel v. Mine Safety and Health Admin.,

 (CADC 2019) (mining industry). Those suits
often arise under statutory review provisions that, like the
APA, authorize courts to “set aside” agency actions. See,
e.g., 

(7) (railroad industry); 

(a)(1) (mining industry). And the suits all depend on
the availability of vacatur as a remedy. In particular, the
12     CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS

                      KAVANAUGH, J., concurring

workers may prevail in those suits only through vacatur of
the agency rules. So if “set aside” did not mean vacate,
workplace safety rules could be challenged from only one
direction—by employers who want less regulation, not by
workers who want more regulation.
   The examples of standard agency litigation that depend
on the availability of vacatur are seemingly endless.
Vacatur was essential when American workers challenged
a Department of Labor rule that unlawfully allowed
employers to access inexpensive foreign labor, with the
effect of lowering American workers’ wages. See Mendoza
v. Perez, 

 (CADC 2014). Vacatur was
essential when a county challenged the Department of the
Interior’s allowance for Indian gaming on nearby land. See
Butte Cty. v. Hogen, 

 (CADC 2010). Vacatur
is often essential when a State challenges an agency action
that does not regulate the State directly but has adverse
downstream effects on the State. See, e.g., Department of
Commerce v. New York, 

 (2019).6
   I will stop there. But to be clear, I could go on all day
(and then some) listing cases where vacatur was necessary
for an unregulated but adversely affected plaintiff in an
——————
  6 In some circumstances, usually when a court rules that an agency

must provide additional explanation for the challenged agency action or
must regulate some entity or activity more extensively, some courts have
remanded to the agency without vacatur. Remand without vacatur is
essentially a shorthand way of vacating a rule and staying the vacatur
pending the agency’s completion of an additional required action, such
as providing additional explanation or issuing a new, more stringent
rule. I do not address that practice here, which has been the subject of
some debate. See Checkosky v. SEC, 

, 462–465 (CADC 1994)
(Silberman, J.) (explaining the practice); see also 

(Randolph, J.) (noting that courts and parties alternatively may avoid
any “difficulties” associated with vacatur by “a stay of the mandate”).
Importantly for present purposes, the view that vacatur is “authorized
by the APA is a basic proposition shared by both sides of the debate over
remand without vacatur.” M. Sohoni, The Power To Vacate a Rule, 

, 1178 (2020).
                  Cite as: 

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                   KAVANAUGH, J., concurring

APA suit to obtain relief.
                             IV
  Against all of that text, history, precedent, and common
sense, the Government has recently rejected the
straightforward and long-accepted conclusion that the
phrase “set aside” in the APA authorizes vacatur. Instead,
the Government contends that plaintiffs harmed by agency
rules must seek injunctions against enforcement of those
rules. See Brief for United States in United States v. Texas,
O. T. 2022, No. 22–58, pp. 40–44. One effect of the
Government’s new position would be to insulate many
agency rules from meaningful judicial review in suits by
unregulated but adversely affected parties.
  To support its new position, the Government has offered
an array of arguments.
  First, the Government says that vacatur of a federal rule
is akin to a nationwide injunction—in other words, an
injunction that prohibits the Government from enforcing a
law against anyone, not just the parties in a specific case.
The Government has contended that equitable relief is
ordinarily limited to the parties in a specific case.
Therefore, nationwide injunctions would be permissible
only if Congress authorized them.
  But in the APA, Congress did in fact depart from that
baseline and authorize vacatur. As noted above, the text of
the APA expressly authorizes federal courts to “set aside”
agency action. 

(2). “Unlike judicial review
of statutes, in which courts enter judgments and decrees
only against litigants, the APA” and related statutory
review provisions “go further by empowering the judiciary
to act directly against the challenged agency action.” J.
Mitchell, The Writ-of-Erasure Fallacy, 

,
1012 (2018). The text of §706(2) directs federal courts to
vacate agency actions in the same way that appellate courts
vacate the judgments of trial courts. See M. Sohoni, The
14     CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS

                       KAVANAUGH, J., concurring

Power To Vacate a Rule, 

, 1131–
1134 (2020). The text of the APA therefore authorizes
vacatur of agency rules. By contrast, Congress has rarely
authorized courts to act directly on federal statutes or to
prohibit their enforcement against nonparties. As a result,
background equitable principles may control in those non-
APA cases.
  Second, the Government argues that the remedies
available in APA suits are not governed by §706(2), which
directs courts to “set aside” agency action, but instead are
governed by §703. That argument is weak. Section 703
determines the “form of proceeding” for suits under the APA
and identifies the federal actors against whom an “action
for judicial review may be brought.”7 But “no court has ever
held that Section 703 implicitly delimits the kinds of
remedies available in an APA suit.” M. Sohoni, The Past
and Future of Universal Vacatur, 133 Yale L. J. 2305, 2337
(2024). For good reason: As explained above, the ordinary
meaning of “set aside” in §706(2) has long been understood
to refer to the remedy of vacatur. The conclusion that §706
governs remedies is also supported by §706(1), which
authorizes courts to “compel agency action unlawfully
withheld or unreasonably delayed”—unmistakably a
remedy. By contrast, the text of §703 “speaks to venue and
forms of proceedings, not to remedies, and regardless, its
——————
  7 Section 703 states: “The form of proceeding for judicial review is the

special statutory review proceeding relevant to the subject matter in a
court specified by statute or, in the absence or inadequacy thereof, any
applicable form of legal action, including actions for declaratory
judgments or writs of prohibitory or mandatory injunction or habeas
corpus, in a court of competent jurisdiction. If no special statutory review
proceeding is applicable, the action for judicial review may be brought
against the United States, the agency by its official title, or the
appropriate officer. Except to the extent that prior, adequate, and
exclusive opportunity for judicial review is provided by law, agency
action is subject to judicial review in civil or criminal proceedings for
judicial enforcement.”
                  Cite as: 

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                   KAVANAUGH, J., concurring

listing of the available forms of proceedings is
nonexhaustive.” Sohoni, The Past and Future of Universal
Vacatur, 133 Yale L. J., at 2337.
   To support its novel reliance on §703, the Government
suggests that the phrase “set aside” in §706(2) may refer to
a “rule of decision directing the reviewing court to disregard
unlawful” agency actions in “resolving the case before it,”
rather than the remedy of vacatur. Brief for United States
in United States v. Texas, O. T. 2022, No. 22–58, at 40. But
the leading cases and legal dictionaries at the time of the
APA’s enactment did not use “set aside” in that manner.
They instead referred to setting aside (that is, vacating)
judgments—a meaning entirely consistent with the APA’s
authorization to vacate agency actions. See supra, at 5.
The Government’s position instead relies on some colloquial
uses of the phrase “set aside” in federal constitutional
challenges to state statutes. See, e.g., Brief for United
States in United States v. Texas, O. T. 2022, No. 22–58,
at 41 (citing Mallinckrodt Chemical Works v. Missouri ex
rel. Jones, 

 (1915)); see also Mallinckrodt,

 (referring to “one who seeks to set aside a
state statute as repugnant to the Federal Constitution”).
That is a thin basis for suddenly prohibiting entire
categories of long-common administrative litigation.
   Third, the Government seizes on legislative history to
argue that Congress did not expect the APA to create new
remedies against unlawful agency actions. But vacatur was
not a new remedy. On the contrary, several pre-APA
statutes authorized courts to “set aside” specific kinds of
agency actions, such as orders by the Interstate Commerce
Commission. See n. 2, supra. This Court correctly
understood those statutes to authorize vacatur. For
example, in litigation regarding the regulation of railroads,
this Court held that an unlawful ICC order was “void.”
United States v. Baltimore & Ohio R. Co., 

(1935). Similar examples abound. See, e.g., Sohoni, The
16    CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS

                  KAVANAUGH, J., concurring

Past and Future of Universal Vacatur, 133 Yale L. J., at
2329–2335 (collecting cases). By similarly authorizing
courts to “set aside” agency actions, the APA likewise
authorized vacatur. §706(2).
  Moreover, although vacatur was not as common in the
years surrounding the APA’s enactment, there is a simple
explanation for that: Courts had few occasions to set aside
agency rules before this Court’s 1967 decision in Abbott
Laboratories v. Gardner, which significantly expanded the
opportunities for facial, pre-enforcement review of agency
rules. 

, 139–141. Indeed, it was not until
Abbott Laboratories that “preenforcement review of agency
rules” became “the norm, not the exception.” S. Breyer &
R. Stewart, Administrative Law and Regulatory Policy
1137 (2d ed. 1985).
  The Government’s current position on vacatur would
de facto overrule Abbott Laboratories as to suits by
unregulated parties. Not surprisingly, the Government’s
current position on vacatur sounds very similar to Justice
Fortas’ dissent in a companion case to Abbott Laboratories,
where he lamented that in the wake of those decisions, a
court would be able to “suspend the operation of regulations
in their entirety.” Gardner v. Toilet Goods Assn., Inc., 

 (1967). In any event, to the extent that the
Government worries that vacatur of rules (as opposed to
orders) is more common today than it was in the 1950s, the
Government’s true grievance is with Abbott Laboratories.
  Fourth, the Government objects to the real-world
consequences that occur when a federal district court
wrongly vacates a lawful rule. I appreciate that concern.
But federal law already gives the Government tools to
mitigate those consequences—if not avoid them altogether.
When the Government believes that a district court has
erroneously vacated a rule (or erroneously issued a
preliminary injunction against a rule), the Government
may promptly seek a stay in the relevant federal court of
                     Cite as: 

 (2024)                   17

                      KAVANAUGH, J., concurring

appeals. To determine whether to grant a stay, the court of
appeals may then promptly review the Government’s
likelihood of success on the merits, among other factors. If
the court of appeals denies a stay, the Government may
seek further review in this Court. See Labrador v. Poe, 

, ___ (2024) (KAVANAUGH, J., concurring in grant
of stay) (slip op., at 2). The Government’s frustration with
the occasional incorrect district court vacatur of an agency
rule is understandable. But especially given the readily
accessible and regularly utilized procedures for staying a
district court’s vacatur,8 we should not overreact by entirely
gutting vacatur as a remedy and thereby barring
unregulated but adversely affected parties from bringing
APA suits.
   Not surprisingly, when asked at oral argument in this
case about the extraordinary consequences of its new no-
vacatur position, the Government seemed to backpedal and
hedge a bit. The Government suggested that vacatur may
actually still be appropriate if it is “the only way to give the
party before the court relief.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 76. The
Government also said that “it’s possible that the only way
to provide” Corner Post “relief would be vacatur.” 

   I appreciate the Government’s apparent attempt to back
away from its extreme stance. But in doing so, the
Government also revealed the weakness of its position. The
meaning of “set aside” in the APA cannot reasonably
depend on the specific party before the court. Either the
APA authorizes vacatur, or it does not.
   More to the point, the Government’s answer at oral
argument is a solution in search of a problem. The federal
courts have long interpreted the APA to authorize vacatur
of agency actions. Both the text and the history of the APA
support that interpretation, and courts have had no real
——————
  8 If the problem became sufficiently severe, the Executive Branch could

always ask Congress to limit the remedies available under the APA.
18    CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS

                   KAVANAUGH, J., concurring

difficulty applying the remedy in practice. Some 78 years
after the APA and 57 years after Abbott Laboratories, I
would not suddenly throw out that sound and settled
interpretation of the APA and eliminate entire classes of
historically common and vitally important litigation
against federal agencies.
                         *    *     *
   The Government’s crusade against vacatur would create
“strange and even absurd consequences.” Sohoni, The Past
and Future of Universal Vacatur, 133 Yale L. J., at 2340.
In this opinion, I have described one such consequence: It
would leave unregulated plaintiffs like Corner Post without
a remedy in APA challenges to agency rules.               The
Government’s position therefore would fundamentally
reshape administrative law, leaving administrative
agencies with extraordinary new power to issue rules free
from potential suits by unregulated but adversely affected
parties—businesses, environmental plaintiffs, workers, the
list goes on.
   I agree with the longstanding consensus—a consensus
based on text, history, precedent, and common sense—that
vacatur is an appropriate remedy when a federal court
holds that an agency rule is unlawful. Because vacatur
remains an available remedy under the APA, Corner Post
can obtain meaningful relief if it prevails in this lawsuit.
                  Cite as: 

 (2024)             1

                     JACKSON, J., dissenting

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
                          _________________

                          No. 22–1008
                          _________________


     CORNER POST, INC., PETITIONER v. BOARD
        OF GOVERNORS OF THE FEDERAL
              RESERVE SYSTEM
 ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF
           APPEALS FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT
                          [July 1, 2024]

   JUSTICE JACKSON, with whom JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR and
JUSTICE KAGAN join, dissenting.
   More than half a century ago, this Court highlighted the
long-recognized “hazards inherent in attempting to define
for all purposes when a ‘cause of action’ first ‘accrues.’ ”
Crown Coat Front Co. v. United States, 

(1967). Today, the majority throws that caution to the wind
and engages in the same kind of misguided reasoning about
statutory limitations periods that we have previously ad-
monished.
   The flawed reasoning and far-reaching results of the
Court’s ruling in this case are staggering. First, the reason-
ing. The text and context of the relevant statutory provi-
sions plainly reveal that, for facial challenges to agency reg-
ulations, the 6-year limitations period in 

(a) starts running when the rule is published. The
Court says otherwise today, holding that the broad statu-
tory term “accrues” requires us to conclude that the limita-
tions period for Administrative Procedure Act (APA) claims
runs from the time of a plaintiff ’s injury. Never mind that
this Court’s precedents tell us that the meaning of “accrues”
is context specific. Never mind that, in the administrative-
law context, limitations statutes uniformly run from the
2     CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS

                     JACKSON, J., dissenting

moment of agency action. Never mind that a plaintiff ’s in-
jury is utterly irrelevant to a facial APA claim. According
to the Court, we must ignore all of this because, for other
kinds of claims, accrual begins at the time of a plaintiff ’s
injury.
   Next, the results. The Court’s baseless conclusion means
that there is effectively no longer any limitations period for
lawsuits that challenge agency regulations on their face.
Allowing every new commercial entity to bring fresh facial
challenges to long-existing regulations is profoundly desta-
bilizing for both Government and businesses. It also allows
well-heeled litigants to game the system by creating new
entities or finding new plaintiffs whenever they blow past
the statutory deadline.
   The majority refuses to accept the straightforward, com-
monsense, and singularly plausible reading of the limita-
tions statute that Congress wrote. In doing so, the Court
wreaks havoc on Government agencies, businesses, and so-
ciety at large. I respectfully dissent.
                               I
   When a claim accrues depends on the nature of the claim.
See Crown Coat, 

. So, understanding the
context in which these claims arose is essential to determin-
ing when Congress meant for them to accrue. The facts of
this very case illustrate the absurdity of the majority’s one-
size-fits-all approach. The procedural history is also a
prime example of the gamesmanship that statutory limita-
tions periods are enacted to prevent.
                             A
  Start with the relevant agency regulation. In 2010, Con-
gress required the Federal Reserve Board to issue rules for
debit-card transaction fees. See 15 U. S. C. §1693o–2(a)(1).
The Board did as Congress instructed. As relevant here, in
                  Cite as: 

 (2024)            3

                     JACKSON, J., dissenting

2011, the Board issued Regulation II, capping debit-card in-
terchange fees at 21 cents per transaction plus 0.05 percent
of the transaction. 

 (2011) (codified at

(b) (2022)).
   As often happens, affected parties challenged Regula-
tion II almost immediately after the Board issued it Sev-
eral large trade groups sued under the APA, alleging that
Regulation II was, in several respects, arbitrary, capricious,
and not in accordance with law. NACS v. Board of Gover-
nors of FRS, 

, 95–96 (DC 2013). Ulti-
mately, the D. C. Circuit rejected that challenge in relevant
part. NACS v. Board of Governors of FRS, 

 (2014). And, a few months after that, we denied certi-
orari. See 

 (2015).
                              B
   Now consider the facts of this challenge. In the majority’s
telling, this is about a single “truckstop and convenience
store located in Watford City, North Dakota.” Ante, at 1.
   Not quite. Rather, two large trade groups initially filed
this action in 2021—a full decade after the Federal Reserve
Board finalized the debit-card-fee regulations at issue.
Those groups were the North Dakota Petroleum Marketers
Association, a “trade association that has existed since the
mid-1950s,” and the North Dakota Retail Association, an-
other trade group. App. to Pet. for Cert. 53. Corner Post,
which had only opened its doors in 2018, was not a party to
the trade groups’ initial complaint. The Government moved
to dismiss the pleading, invoking §2401(a)’s 6-year statute
of limitations. In response, the trade groups sought leave
to amend.
   It was only then that Corner Post was added as a plain-
tiff. And, importantly, other than the addition of Corner
Post, the trade groups’ complaint remained practically
identical to the untimely one they had filed before. Other
than a few changes of phrasing and some newly available
4      CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS

                         JACKSON, J., dissenting

2019 data, the amended complaint alleged the same facts
and sought the same relief as the original pleading. It also
included the exact same legal claims—verbatim. The only
material change to the amended complaint was the addition
of Corner Post.
   Thus, even before I analyze the statute of limitations ar-
guments, one can see that this case is the poster child for
the type of manipulation that the majority now invites—
new groups being brought in (or created) just to do an end
run around the statute of limitations.1 To repeat: The
claims in Corner Post’s lawsuit were not new or in any way
distinct (even in wording) from the pre-existing and un-
timely claims of the trade organizations that had been
around for decades.
   This time, however, when the Government renewed its
motion to dismiss, the plaintiffs made the case all about
Corner Post. The plaintiffs argued that, because Corner
Post had not yet formed as a company when the Board is-
sued Regulation II, it simply could not be subjected to a 6-
year limitations period that ran from when the challenged
regulation issued back in 2011. (One wonders how a com-
pany that formed against the backdrop of a long-settled rule
could possibly be entitled to complain, or claim injury, re-
lated to the regulatory environment in which it willingly
entered—but I digress.) Rather than accepting that the un-
timely challenge remained so, Corner Post demanded a per-
sonalized, plaintiff-specific limitations rule, giving an en-
tity six years from when it was first affected by a
——————
   1 If this case illustrates one type of gamesmanship, one does not need

to think hard to imagine other examples. A cash-only business that an-
nounces its intent to accept debit cards and thereby claiming injury from
the debit-card rule. New owners that buy out a shop, insisting that they
too are entitled to challenge the debit-card rule based on their status as
new entrants into the marketplace. It is telling that, even as the major-
ity says that the moment of the plaintiff ’s injury marks the start of the
limitations period for facial APA challenges, the majority fails to describe
precisely when that injury occurs in this context.
                      Cite as: 

 (2024)                        5

                          JACKSON, J., dissenting

Government action to file a facial challenge.
   The District Court rejected Corner Post’s argument, fol-
lowing the lead of every court of appeals that had ever ad-
dressed accrual of an APA facial challenge.2 It held that the
addition of Corner Post as a plaintiff did not make a differ-
ence to the timeliness of the business groups’ claims. The
Eighth Circuit affirmed, holding that “when plaintiffs bring
a facial challenge to a final agency action, the right of action
accrues, and the limitations period begins to run, upon pub-
lication of the regulation.” North Dakota Retail Assn. v.
Board of Governors of FRS, 

 (2022).
                              II
   But here we are. Three-quarters of a century after Con-
gress enacted the APA, a majority of this Court rejects the
consensus view that, for facial challenges to agency rules,
the statutory 6-year limitations period runs from the publi-
cation of the rule. Instead, it holds that an APA claim ac-
crues “when the plaintiff is injured by final agency action.”
Ante, at 1. The majority maintains that the text of §2401(a)
demands this result. But if that answer is so obvious, one
wonders why no court proclaimed it until more than 75
years after all the statutory pieces were in place.
   To explain how the majority got this ruling wrong, I find
it necessary to provide the right answer. Here, the relevant
——————
   2 The majority’s opinion says we took this case to resolve a circuit split,

suggesting that the Sixth Circuit had reached the contrary conclusion.
See ante, at 3–4. It had not. In Herr v. United States Forest Serv., 

 (2015), the Sixth Circuit addressed accrual in the context of an
as-applied challenge after the Government had threatened enforcement.
There, the Circuit pegged accrual to the moment of the injury allegedly
caused by application of the rule to the plaintiff, see 

, and did
not discuss whether that same accrual rule would apply to facial chal-
lenges. Since Herr, neither the Sixth Circuit nor any district court within
it has extended Herr’s rule to facial challenges to final agency actions,
and at least one District Court has expressly rejected such an extension.
See Linney’s Pizza, LLC v. Board of Governors of FRS, 

,
*2–*4 (ED Ky., Sept. 15, 2023).
6     CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS

                     JACKSON, J., dissenting

statutory text is the catchall limitations provision for suits
brought against the United States: §2401(a) of Title 28 of
the United States Code. All agree that there are two key
terms in that provision—“accrues” and “the right of action.”
Ibid. The majority misreads both. Contrary to the Court’s
rigid reading, the word “accrues” lacks any fixed meaning.
See Crown Coat, 

. Instead, the meaning of
accrue for the purpose of a statute of limitations is deter-
mined by the particular “right of action” at issue. For many
kinds of legal claims, accrual is plaintiff specific because the
claims themselves are plaintiff specific. But facial admin-
istrative-law claims are not. This means that, in the ad-
ministrative-law context, the limitations period begins not
when a plaintiff is injured, but when a rule is finalized.
                               A
   When sovereign immunity has been waived, the Federal
Government is often sued, and Congress has enacted stat-
utes of limitations to ensure that those lawsuits are brought
in a timely fashion. Because such suits arise in different
contexts, Congress has enacted different statutes of limita-
tions for different types of suits.
   Most statutes of limitations are context specific. For ex-
ample, a tort claim against the United States typically must
be brought “within two years after such claim accrues.” 

(b). By contrast, a party challenging certain
administrative orders must seek review “within 60 days af-
ter [the order’s] entry.” §2344. Many more examples of con-
text-specific limitations periods in the U. S. Code abound.
See, e.g., §2501 (claims over which the United States Court
of Federal Claims has jurisdiction must be brought within
six years); 

(b)(1) (challenges to certain
standards adopted by the Environmental Protection
Agency under the Clean Water Act must commence “within
120 days from the date of . . . promulgation”).
                  Cite as: 

 (2024)             7

                     JACKSON, J., dissenting

   The statute at issue here—28 U. S. C. §2401(a)—supple-
ments those specific provisions. In doing so, §2401(a) serves
a special purpose: to act as a catchall that imposes an outer
time limit on claims brought against the United States
when no other statute of limitations applies. Under
§2401(a), “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.” This
catchall limitations statute has been applied in a range of
contexts, including APA claims (like this one), contract
claims, see Crown Coat, 386 U. S., at 510–511, and more,
see, e.g., Natural Resources Defense Council v. Haaland,

 (CA9 2024) (claims under the Endan-
gered Species Act).
   Consistent with the broad scope of its potential applica-
tion, §2401(a) uses broad language. It starts the 6-year
clock when “the right of action first accrues.” §2401(a). No
more elaboration or specificity is given. So, what does the
sparse text of §2401(a) tell us?
   To start, the statute tells us to look at when “the right of
action first accrues.” (Emphasis added.) The word “first”
directs us to start the clock at the earliest possible oppor-
tunity once the claim accrues. From the text alone, then,
we know that this moment in time should happen sooner
rather than later. But when that moment occurs depends
on the meaning of both “the right of action” and “accrues.”
   Next, the provision uses the unadorned phrase “the right
of action.” Because this statute is applicable to a broad
range of causes of action against the Government, the un-
derlying statute (here the APA) provides “the right of ac-
tion,” not §2401(a) itself. Put another way, the §2401(a)
catchall applies to different causes of action, and those
causes of action establish different legal claims. Though the
right of action is not the same for an APA claim as it is for
an Endangered Species Act claim, §2401(a)’s broad “right of
action” language applies to both of these claims, and more.
8      CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS

                         JACKSON, J., dissenting

                               B
   A proper understanding of the word “accrues” makes
clear that this term is far more flexible and context depend-
ent than the majority appreciates. Crucially, the Court has
said this very thing before—more than once, in fact. We
have long understood that it is simply not “possible to as-
sign the word ‘accrued’ any definite technical meaning
which by itself would enable us to say whether the statutory
period begins to run at one time or the other.” Reading Co.
v. Koons, 

, 61–62 (1926); see also Crown Coat,

 (recognizing “the hazards inherent in at-
tempting to define for all purposes when a ‘cause of action’
first ‘accrues’ ”).
   But, for some reason, that does not stop the majority from
trying here. Its opinion repeatedly asserts that the ordi-
nary meaning of accrual is that claims accrue only when a
plaintiff can sue. See ante, at 6–10.3 But even the majority
acknowledges that its preferred definition of accrual is not
universal; it is, at most, “the ‘standard rule’ ” that “can be
displaced.” Ante, at 8 (quoting Green v. Brennan, 

 (2016); emphasis added).
   Far from imposing a one-size-fits-all definition of the
word “accrue,” this Court has traditionally taken a claim-
specific view: “[A] right accrues when it comes into exist-
ence. ” United States v. Lindsay, 

 (1954).
For example, in McMahon v. United States, 

(1951), we held that, under the Suits in Admiralty Act, a
claim accrued when a seaman was injured, even though he
could not yet sue at that time. See 

 at 27–28. In Crown
——————
   3 The majority insists on a single definition of “accrued,” but it cannot

keep its story straight as to what that definition is. Its opinion offers
multiple formulations, stating that a claim accrues “when it comes into
existence,” “when the plaintiff has a complete and present cause of ac-
tion,” “when a suit may be maintained thereon,” and, also, “after the
plaintiff suffers the injury.” Ante, at 7–8 (internal quotation marks omit-
ted). These distinctions can make a difference.
                   Cite as: 

 (2024)              9

                      JACKSON, J., dissenting

Coat, we held the opposite—a claim brought under 

 did not accrue at the time of injury, but ra-
ther at the moment of final administrative action, because
a plaintiff could not sue until the agency action was final.
See 386 U. S., at 513–514, 517–518. The point is not that
these cases all point in one direction or the other with re-
spect to the meaning of accrue. Instead, our cases illustrate
what this Court has expressly stated: The term “accrued”
lacks “any definite technical meaning,” Reading, 

.
   The majority nevertheless decrees today that accrual
must always be plaintiff specific—i.e., that a claim cannot
accrue until “this particular plaintiff ” can bring suit. Ante,
at 14. But that is not what §2401(a) says. It does not say
that the clock starts when the plaintiff ’s right of action first
accrues; rather, §2401(a) starts the clock when “the right of
action first accrues.” (Emphasis added.) In other words,
the limitations provision here focuses on the claim being
brought without regard for who brings it.
   The dictionary definitions on which the majority relies
further highlight this important observation. A claim ac-
crues, according to those definitions, “ ‘when a suit may be
maintained thereon’ ” or upon the “ ‘coming or springing into
existence of a right to sue.’ ” Ante, at 7 (emphasis added)
(first quoting Black’s Law Dictionary 37 (4th ed. 1951), then
quoting Ballentine’s Law Dictionary 15–16 (2d ed. 1948)).
Again, and notably, these dictionaries speak of a right to
sue, not the plaintiff ’s right to sue. Like §2401(a) itself,
these definitions do not support the majority’s assertion
that accrual is necessarily plaintiff specific.
   Of course, many of our cases do say that a claim accrues
when “ ‘the plaintiff has a complete and present cause of ac-
tion.’ ” E.g., Gabelli v. SEC, 

 (2013); Wal-
lace v. Kato, 

 (2007); Graham County Soil
& Water Conservation Dist. v. United States ex rel. Wilson,

 (2005); Bay Area Laundry and Dry
10    CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS

                     JACKSON, J., dissenting

Cleaning Pension Trust Fund v. Ferbar Corp. of Cal., 

 (1997). But those statements were made in
the context of particular cases, each of which dealt with
plaintiff-specific causes of action. See, e.g., Gabelli, 

 (civil enforcement claim by the Securities and
Exchange Commission); Wallace, 

 (false
imprisonment and arrest claims); Graham County, 

 (retaliation claim against an employer); Bay
Area Laundry, 

 (claim alleging failure to
make required payments to employee pension funds).
   Here is what I mean by this. When a complaint brought
against a defendant asserts, “You falsely imprisoned me,”
or “You retaliated against me,” it is making a legal claim
that is specific to the particular plaintiff. But, as discussed
below, it is not similarly plaintiff specific to bring a claim
saying, for example, that a particular regulation is invalid
because it “exceeds the Board’s statutory authority,” or be-
cause the Government “failed to consider important aspects
of the problem,” as the complaint here alleges. App. to Pet.
for Cert. 80, 82. So, while accrual may sometimes—even
usually—be plaintiff specific, that is just because underly-
ing legal claims are often plaintiff specific. The precedents
the majority cites never say otherwise; i.e., they do not tell
us that accrual must always be plaintiff specific.
   The majority’s other hard-and-fast distinction—between
statutes of limitations and statutes of repose—fares no bet-
ter. See ante, at 9–10. The majority sets up a dichotomy:
Statutes of limitations are plaintiff-centric rules that “ ‘re-
quire plaintiffs to pursue diligent prosecution of known
claims,’ ” while statutes of repose emphasize finality and
are tied to “ ‘the last culpable act or omission of the defend-
ant.’ ” Ante, at 9 (quoting CTS Corp. v. Waldburger, 

, 8 (2014)). The problem is that statutes of limita-
tions and statutes of repose, while different, are not nearly
as different as the majority imagines. It is true that stat-
utes of repose are considered to be “defendant-protective.”
                      Cite as: 

 (2024)                    11

                         JACKSON, J., dissenting

Ante, at 10. But the same is true of statutes of limitations.
“The very purpose of a period of limitation is that there may
be, at some definitely ascertainable period, an end to litiga-
tion.” Reading, 

; see also Gabelli, 

 (repose is a “ ‘basic polic[y] of all limitations provi-
sions’ ”). In fact, according to one of the dictionaries the ma-
jority cites, “[s]tatutes of limitation are statutes of repose.”
Black’s Law Dictionary, at 1077 (emphasis added). The dif-
ference is that unlike statutes of repose, statutes of limita-
tions have more than one purpose: they bring finality for
defendants and prevent plaintiffs from sleeping on their
rights. Understanding these dual functions sheds no light
whatsoever on what to do when those competing purposes
point in different directions.4
                               III
   Because different claims accrue at different times, we
must look to the specific types of claims that the plaintiffs
have brought and consider the context in which the limita-
tions period operates. “Cases under [one statute] do not
necessarily rule . . . claims” brought under another. Crown
Coat, 

. And our understanding of accrual
for limitations purposes has always been context specific.
See, e.g., Wallace, 

 (relying on torts trea-
tises to explain the “distinctive rule” for commencement of
limitations period for false imprisonment suits); Franconia
Associates v. United States, 

, 142–144 (2002)
(citing contracts treatises to explain that contract claims ac-
crue at the moment of breach); Merck & Co. v. Reynolds,


——————
   4 Here, these purposes are at odds because repose favors starting the

clock at the moment of final agency action, whereas a plaintiff-specific
limitations rule would be targeted at a plaintiff’s injury to ensure plain-
tiffs don’t sleep on their rights. In the administrative-law context, one
has to choose between those objectives; no one rule can equally achieve
both of these ends.
12     CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS

                          JACKSON, J., dissenting

, 644–646 (2010) (applying fraud-specific dis-
covery rule to determine accrual). In other words, to under-
stand when “the right of action” accrues under §2401(a), we
must understand what the right of action is.
                                A
   The right of action that is invoked in many administra-
tive-law cases, including this one, is a statutory claim that
an agency has violated certain legal requirements when it
took a certain action, such that the agency’s action itself is
invalid. See, e.g., 

(2). And Congress has re-
peatedly made clear, through various statutory enact-
ments, that in the administrative-law context, the statute
of limitations for filing a claim that seeks to invalidate the
agency action runs from the moment of final agency action.
   Take the Administrative Orders Review Act (also known
as the Hobbs Act), for example. See 

. That
statute is the exclusive mechanism for reviewing certain or-
ders issued by over a half-dozen federal agencies. The Act
requires suits to be brought “within 60 days after [the] en-
try” of any final agency order. §2344. There are many other
similar statutes. In its brief, the Government provided us
with more than two dozen statutory provisions where the
limitations period starts running at the moment of final
agency action—whether that action is the publication of a
rule, or the issuance of an order, or something else. See
Brief for Respondent 15–17, and n. 4. And, as the Govern-
ment itself acknowledges, even that list is not comprehen-
sive. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 51 (“Candidly, we got to a page-
long footnote and stopped”).5
——————
  5 No kidding. On top of the dozens of examples that the Government

provided, there are many, many others.               See, e.g., 

(b)(1)(A) (“[A] petition to review a final order or final decision of the
[Merit Systems Protection] Board shall be filed . . . within 60 days after
the Board issues notice of the final order or decision of the Board”); 15
U. S. C. §80b–13(a) (“Any person or party aggrieved by an order issued
by the [Securities and Exchange] Commission under this subchapter
                       Cite as: 

 (2024)                       13

                          JACKSON, J., dissenting

  Despite the dozens of statutes that start the limitations
period at the moment of final agency action, neither Corner
Post nor the majority identifies a single statute in the ad-
ministrative-law context—either now or before 1948—that
takes any other approach. This tells us exactly the message
that Congress might have expected courts to infer when in-
terpreting §2401(a): For administrative-law actions, a
claim accrues at the moment of final agency action.
  The Court says we must ignore these other statutes be-
cause they post-date Congress’s 1948 enactment of
§2401(a). See ante, at 12–14. The majority’s reasoning is
doubly wrong. First, it is wrong on the facts. Even before
1948, Congress consistently started limitations periods in
the administrative-law context at the moment of the last


——————
may obtain a review of such order . . . by filing . . . within sixty days after
the entry of such order, a written petition”); 

(a)(2) (“Any
[covered] order or decision . . . shall be subject to judicial review on or
before 30 days from the date of such order or decision”); 

(a) (“[T]o obtain review . . . of a final decision of the Board of Vet-
erans’ Appeals, a person adversely affected by such decision shall file a
notice of appeal with the Court within 120 days after the date on which
notice of the decision is issued”); 

(g) (“Any individual,
after any final decision of the Commissioner of Social Security made after
a hearing to which he was a party . . . may obtain a review of such deci-
sion by a civil action commenced within sixty days after the mailing to
him of notice of such decision”); §1395oo(f )(1) (“Providers shall have the
right to obtain judicial review of any final decision of the [Provider Re-
imbursement Review] Board . . . by a civil action commenced within 60
days of the date on which notice of any final decision by the Board . . . is
received”); §7607(b)(1) (“Any petition for review under this subsection
shall be filed within sixty days from the date notice of such promulgation,
approval, or action appears in the Federal Register, except that if such
petition is based solely on grounds arising after such sixtieth day, then
any petition for review under this subsection shall be filed within sixty
days after such grounds arise”); 

(b)(1) (petitions seeking
review of National Transportation Safety Board orders that relate to avi-
ation matters “must be filed not later than 60 days after the order is
issued”).
14     CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS

                          JACKSON, J., dissenting

agency action.6 Then, as now, Congress decided that the
deadline for reviewing agency actions should be pegged to
the action under review. Second, the majority misses the
broader point: Whenever Congress imposes a deadline to
challenge an agency decision, the limitations period always
starts at the moment of the last agency action. We should
pay attention to the uniformly expressed judgment of Con-
gress, and read §2401(a) accordingly.
   Somehow, the majority draws the opposite conclusion. In
its view, either Congress’s consistently expressed intention
is irrelevant to what §2401(a) means, or Congress’s failure
to explicitly express that intention in the text of §2401(a)
indicates that Congress decided otherwise in this particular
statute (after all, Congress could have expressly pegged ac-
crual to final agency action in §2401(a) but did not do so).
See ante, at 8–10. 7 But mechanically drawing these sorts
——————
   6 See, e.g., 

 (1921) (codified at 

(a)) (meat-

packers must appeal agency orders within 30 days after service of order);

 (1934) (codified as amended at 

(c)) (Federal
Communications Commission orders must be challenged in court “within
twenty days after the decision complained of is effective”); 

(1935) (codified at 16 U. S. C. §825l(b)) (orders issued by the Federal
Power Commission pursuant to the Public Utility Act of 1935 must be
challenged in court “within sixty days after the order of the Commis-
sion”); 

 (1935) (codified at 

(h)) (orders related
to alcohol permits must be challenged “within sixty days after the entry
of such order”); 

 (1938) (codified at 

) (Federal
Trade Commission cease-and-desist orders must be challenged “within
sixty days from the date of the service of such order”); 

 (1938)
(codified at 15 U. S. C. §717r(b)) (orders issued by the Federal Power
Commission pursuant to the Natural Gas Act must be challenged in
court “within sixty days after the order of the Commission”); 

 (1938) (codified at 

(h)) (orders related to new drug
applications must be challenged in court “within sixty days after the en-
try of such order”); 

 (1940) (orders apportioning costs for cer-
tain bridge projects must be challenged in court “within three months
after the date such order is issued”).
   7 The majority criticizes my review of congressional action in this area,

but fails to adequately explore the record itself. Ante, at 12–14. The
                      Cite as: 

 (2024)                    15

                         JACKSON, J., dissenting

of negative inferences when interpreting statutes can be
risky. “Context counts, and it is sometimes difficult to read
much into the absence of a word that is present elsewhere
in a statute.” Bartenwerfer v. Buckley, 

(2023).
   The majority’s approach overlooks relevant context in all
sorts of ways, including the fact that §2401(a) is a catchall
provision that applies to a variety of actions—that is, the
language we are interpreting here does not apply only in
the administrative-law context. It applies to every suit
against the United States not covered by another statute of
limitations. One cannot expect for Congress to have explic-
itly stated that accrual in §2401(a) starts at the point of fi-
nal agency action when §2401(a) is a residual provision that
also applies to claims that do not involve agency action at
all.8
   Frankly, it was also entirely unnecessary for Congress to
be explicit regarding its intentions. Again, in the adminis-
trative-law context, the consistent rule is not the plaintiff-
specific accrual rule that exists in other contexts (e.g.,
torts), but the rule that applies every time Congress has
ever mentioned a limitations period with respect to a suit
against an agency: The claim accrues at the moment of final
agency action. So it is no wonder that Congress did not ex-
pressly mention this in the text of §2401(a)—it did not have
to, for those who have a basic understanding of its statutes.
   What is more, the standard accrual rule for the adminis-
trative-law context makes perfect sense. The APA itself fo-
cuses on the agency’s action, not on the plaintiff. Section
704 subjects certain “agency action[s]” to judicial review.

——————
majority’s conclusion that the accrual rule is plaintiff specific for APA
claims is no more than ipse dixit.
  8 Contra the majority, see ante, at 12, the fact that Congress could have

opted to enact a specific statutory review provision for APA claims says
nothing about how we should apply the catchall review provision here.
16     CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS

                         JACKSON, J., dissenting

Section 706 lays out the scope of judicial review. As rele-
vant here, courts shall “hold unlawful and set aside agency
action” that is “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion,
or otherwise not in accordance with law.” 

(2)(A). Other subsections of §706 likewise focus exclu-
sively on what the agency did. Did the agency act “in excess
of statutory jurisdiction”? §706(2)(C). Did the agency act
“without observance of procedure required by law”?
§706(2)(D).
   Section 702 is not to the contrary. The majority suggests
otherwise, characterizing §702 as “equip[ping] injured par-
ties with a cause of action.” Ante, at 5. This is a misleading
characterization. Section 702 restricts who may challenge
agency action: only those “person[s] suffering legal wrong
because of agency action, or adversely affected or aggrieved
by agency action.” It is simply a limitation on who can sue.
As such, it says nothing about the cause of action that such
a person might bring, nor does it establish that an injury is
an element of the claim, as the majority mistakenly sug-
gests.9 And that is for good reason, since, in administrative
——————
   9 The majority puts too much stock in the fact that §702 references an

injury: That reference actually does no more than highlight the distinc-
tion between what constitutes a claim and who can bring that claim. See
ante, at 4–5, and n. 1. This type of distinction is commonplace in many
areas of our jurisprudence. Take, for example, the constitutional stand-
ing doctrine, which limits eligible plaintiffs to those who have suffered
an injury in fact that is both traceable to the defendant’s conduct and
redressable in court. See FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, 

, 380–385 (2024). Whether a particular plaintiff has standing
to sue says nothing about the elements of the claim itself. See Haaland
v. Brackeen, 

 (2023) (“We do not reach the merits of
these claims because no party before the Court has standing to raise
them”). The distinction between what a claim is and who can bring it
applies with full force here. Section 702 codifies an injury requirement
for bringing APA claims. Whether a particular plaintiff was “adversely
affected or aggrieved by agency action within the meaning of a relevant
statute” under §702 is a threshold inquiry about whether she is an ap-
propriate plaintiff; it has no bearing on whether the agency did, in fact,
                     Cite as: 

 (2024)                  17

                        JACKSON, J., dissenting

actions, the claim itself remains focused on the agency. See
Crown Coat, 

 (“The focus of the court action
is the validity of the administrative decision”).
   The way that courts review agency actions also reinforces
this basic observation. Courts do not look at what hap-
pened to the plaintiff or what happened after the rulemak-
ing—they look only at the rule and the rulemaking process
itself. See SEC v. Chenery Corp., 

 (1943).
“[T]he focal point for judicial review should be the adminis-
trative record already in existence, not some new record
made initially in the reviewing court.” Camp v. Pitts, 

 (1973) (per curiam). Anything that happened
after the rule’s publication (including, perhaps, some injury
to a regulated party) does not matter to an APA claim. So,
the available claims, causes of action, and evidence are the
same regardless of who brings the challenge or when they
bring it.
   Again, the complaint in this case proves the point. Before
Corner Post was added as a plaintiff, the complaint alleged
that (1) Regulation II is contrary to law and exceeds the
Board’s statutory authority, and (2) Regulation II is arbi-
trary and capricious. See Complaint in North Dakota Retail
Assn. v. Board of Governors of FRS, No. 1:21–cv–00095
(D ND), ECF Doc. 1, pp. 32–36. After Corner Post was
added as a plaintiff, the complaint made exactly those same
two legal claims. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 79–84. Before
Corner Post was added, the contrary-to-law claim said that
the Board considered impermissible costs and capped inter-
change fees in a way that was not proportional to the spe-
cific costs of each transaction. See ECF Doc. 1, at 32–34.
After Corner Post was added, the contrary-to-law claim said
the exact same thing. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 79–81. Be-


——————
act in a manner that was “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion,
or otherwise not in accordance with law,” §706(2).
18    CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS

                     JACKSON, J., dissenting

fore the addition of Corner Post, the arbitrary-and-capri-
cious claim said that the Board failed to consider certain
congressional instructions, relied on factors that Congress
did not intend for it to consider, and ran counter to evidence
before the Board. See ECF Doc. 1, at 34–36. Those claims,
too, were unchanged after the addition of Corner Post. See
App. to Pet. for Cert. 82–84.
  From the pleadings filed in this case, three observations
stand out. First, these APA claims, like all APA claims, are
about what the agency itself did, so the logical point to start
the clock is the moment the agency acted. Second, the
claims that Corner Post brings are not specific to it—they
are identical to the untimely claims the coplaintiff trade
groups brought before. And, finally, although the majority
puts procedural challenges to the side—asserting that its
holding does not extend to those, see ante, at 21, n. 8—the
claims in this case are procedural, so the majority’s line-
drawing exercise is meaningless.
                               B
   On the matter of congressional intent, the consistent ac-
crual rule in the administrative-law context (the limitations
period starts running at the time of the final agency action)
is patently superior to the majority’s reading of §2401(a).
Congress enacts statutes of limitations to achieve basic pol-
icy goals: “repose, elimination of stale claims, and certainty
about a plaintiff ’s opportunity for recovery and a defend-
ant’s potential liabilities.” Rotella v. Wood, 

 (2000); see also Gabelli, 

. For APA
claims, where rulemakings apply to the public writ large,
repose and certainty would never exist if any and every
newly formed entity can challenge every agency regulation
in existence. Stated simply, the majority has adopted an
implausible reading of §2401(a), because, as I explain be-
low, a plaintiff-specific accrual rule operating in this con-
text undermines each of the central goals of all limitations
                      Cite as: 

 (2024)                     19

                         JACKSON, J., dissenting

provisions.
   First, repose. This principle means that, at some point,
litigation must end. Under the majority’s reading of the
statute, it never will. Instead of putting a stop to things
after six years, §2401(a) now does nothing to prevent
agency rules from being forever subjected to legal challenge
by newly formed entities (or, as this case illustrates, by old
entities that can find or create new entities to graft onto
their complaint).10
   Second, elimination of stale claims. The majority forces
courts and agencies to parse cold administrative records.
Long after the action in question, courts may be ill equipped
to review decades-old administrative explanations.
   Last, certainty. As I explain in Part IV, infra, the major-
ity’s approach creates uncertainty for the Government and
every entity that relies on the Government to function.
Agency rulemaking serves important “notice and predicta-
bility purposes.” Talk America, Inc. v. Michigan Bell Tele-
phone Co., 

 (2011) (Scalia, J., concurring).
When an administrative agency changes its own rules, it
follows specific, established processes, so parties have some
predictability about how the rules of the road might change.
But when every rule on the books can perpetually be chal-
lenged by any new plaintiff, and is thus subject to limitless
ad hoc amendment, no policy determination can ever be put
to rest, and certainty about the rules that govern will for-
ever remain elusive.




——————
   10 The fact that “courts entertaining later challenges often will be able

to rely on binding Supreme Court or circuit precedent,” ante, at 21, is
irrelevant. What we are deciding now is how the statute of limitations
should be interpreted, and more specifically, whether it makes sense to
interpret it in a way that is inconsistent with the purpose of such stat-
utes.
20     CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS

                         JACKSON, J., dissenting

                               IV
   Today’s ruling is not only baseless. It is also extraordi-
narily consequential. In one fell swoop, the Court has effec-
tively eliminated any limitations period for APA lawsuits,
despite Congress’s unmistakable policy determination to
cut off such suits within six years of the final agency action.
The Court has decided that the clock starts for limitations
purposes whenever a new regulated entity is created. This
means that, from this day forward, administrative agencies
can be sued in perpetuity over every final decision they
make.
   The majority’s ruling makes legal challenges to decades-
old agency decisions fair game, even though courts of ap-
peals had previously applied §2401(a) to find untimely a
range of belated APA challenges. For example, a lower
court rejected an APA challenge to the Food and Drug Ad-
ministration’s approval of the abortion medication mife-
pristone that was brought more than two decades after the
relevant agency action. See Alliance for Hippocratic Medi-
cine v. FDA, 

 (CA5 2023). A 2008 APA
challenge to a 1969 ruling by the Bureau of Alcohol, To-
bacco, Firearms and Explosives implementing the Gun
Control Act was also bounced on statute of limitations
grounds. See Hire Order Ltd. v. Marianos, 

 (CA4 2012). Other unquestionably tardy APA suits
have been dismissed on similar grounds too.11
   No more. After today, even the most well-settled agency

——————
   11 See, e.g., Alabama v. PCI Gaming Auth., 

 (CA11

2015) (2013 challenge to Secretary of Interior’s 1984, 1992, and 1995 de-
cisions to take certain land into trust for tribes); Wong v. Doar, 

 (CA2 2009) (2007 challenge to 1980 Medicaid regulation); Dunn-
McCampbell Royalty Interest, Inc. v. National Park Serv., 

,
1286–1287 (CA5 1997) (1994 challenge to 1979 National Park Service
regulations); Shiny Rock Mining Corp. v. United States, 

,
1365–1366 (CA9 1990) (1984 challenges to 1964 and 1965 land manage-
ment orders).
                  Cite as: 

 (2024)           21

                     JACKSON, J., dissenting

regulations can be placed on the chopping block. And
please take note: The fallout will not stop with new chal-
lenges to old rules involving the most contentious issues of
today. Any established government regulation about any
issue—say, workplace safety, toxic waste, or consumer pro-
tection—can now be attacked by any new regulated entity
within six years of the entity’s formation. A brand new en-
tity could pop up and challenge a regulation that is decades
old; perhaps even one that is as old as the APA itself. No
matter how entrenched, heavily relied upon, or central to
the functioning of our society a rule is, the majority has an-
nounced open season.
   Still, in issuing its ruling in this case, the Court seems
oddly oblivious to the most foreseeable consequence of the
accrual rule it is adopting: Giving every new entity in a reg-
ulated industry its own personal statute of limitations to
challenge longstanding regulations affects our Nation’s
economy. Why? Because administrative agencies establish
the baseline rules around which businesses and individuals
order their lives. When an agency publishes a final rule,
and the period for challenging that rule passes, people in
that industry understand that the agency’s policy choice is
the law and act accordingly. They make investments be-
cause of it. They change their practices because of it. They
enter contracts in light of it. They may not like the rule,
but they live and work with it, because that is what the Rule
of Law requires. It is profoundly destabilizing—and also
acutely unfair—to permit newcomers to bring legal chal-
lenges that can overturn settled regulations long after the
rest of the competitive marketplace has adapted itself to the
regulatory environment.
   Moreover, as I have explained, the Court’s ruling in this
case allows for every new entity to challenge any and every
rule that an agency has ever adopted. It is extraordinarily
presumptuous that an entity formed in full view of an
22    CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS

                    JACKSON, J., dissenting

agency’s rules, by founders who can choose to enter the in-
dustry or not, can demand that well-established rules of en-
gagement be revisited. But even setting aside those com-
monsense fairness concerns, the constant churn of potential
attacks on an agency’s rules by new entrants can harm all
entities in a regulated industry. At any time, anyone can
come along and potentially cause every entity to have to ad-
just its whole operations manual, since any rule (no matter
how well settled) might be subject to alteration. Indeed, the
obvious need for stability in the rules that govern an indus-
try is precisely why a defined period for challenging the
rules was needed at all.
   Knowledgeable amici have explained that the majority’s
approach to accrual of the statute of limitations for APA
claims undermines the “[s]tability, predictability, and con-
sistency [that] enable[s] small businesses to survive and
thrive.” Brief for Small Business Associations as Amici Cu-
riae 5. And there is no question that long-term uncertainty
“hinders the ability of businesses to plan effectively.” 

. The majority’s accrual rule unnecessarily creates “fre-
quent, inconsistent, judicially-driven policy changes that do
not involve the sort of careful balancing envisioned in the
normal process of regulatory change.” 

. And,
again, one might think that preventing such chaos is pre-
cisely why Congress enacted a statute of limitations in the
first place.
   Seeking to minimize the fully foreseeable and potentially
devastating impact of its ruling, the majority maintains
that there is nothing to see here, because not every lawsuit
brought by a new industry upstart will win, and, at any
rate, many agency regulations are already subject to chal-
lenge. See ante, at 21. But this myopic rationalization over-
looks other significant changes that this Court has wrought
this Term with respect to the longstanding rules governing
review of agency actions. The discerning reader will know
that the Court has handed down other decisions this Term
                 Cite as: 

 (2024)          23

                    JACKSON, J., dissenting

that likewise invite and enable a wave of regulatory chal-
lenges—decisions that carry with them the possibility that
well-established agency rules will be upended in ways that
were previously unimaginable. Doctrines that were once
settled are now unsettled, and claims that lacked merit a
year ago are suddenly up for grabs.
  In Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, 

(2024), for example, the Court has reneged on a blackletter
rule of administrative law that had been foundational for
the last four decades. 

 at ___ (slip op., at 30). Under
that prior interpretive doctrine, courts deferred to agency
interpretations of ambiguous statutes that Congress au-
thorized the agency to administer. Now, every legal claim
conceived of in those last four decades—and before—can
possibly be brought before courts newly unleashed from the
constraints of any such deference. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 74
(Assistant to the Solicitor General explaining that this re-
sult “would magnify the effect of” overruling Chevron).
  Put differently, a fixed statute of limitations, running
from the agency’s action, was one barrier to the chaotic up-
ending of settled agency rules; the requirement that defer-
ence be given to an agency’s reasonable interpretations con-
cerning its statutory authority to issue rules was another.
The Court has now eliminated both. Any new objection to
any old rule must be entertained and determined de novo
by judges who can now apply their own unfettered judg-
ment as to whether the rule should be voided.
                        *    *    *
  At the end of a momentous Term, this much is clear: The
tsunami of lawsuits against agencies that the Court’s hold-
ings in this case and Loper Bright have authorized has the
potential to devastate the functioning of the Federal Gov-
ernment. Even more to the present point, that result
simply cannot be what Congress intended when it enacted
legislation that stood up and funded federal agencies and
24    CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS

                     JACKSON, J., dissenting

vested them with authority to set the ground rules for the
individuals and entities that participate in the our economy
and our society. It is utterly inconceivable that §2401(a)’s
statute of limitations was meant to permit fresh attacks on
settled regulations from all new comers forever. Yet, that
is what the majority holds today.
   But Congress still has a chance to address this absurdity
and forestall the coming chaos. It can opt to correct this
Court’s mistake by clarifying that the statutes it enacts are
designed to facilitate the functioning of agencies, not to hob-
ble them. In particular, Congress can amend §2401(a), or
enact a specific review provision for APA claims, to state
explicitly what any such rule must mean if it is to operate
as a limitations period in this context: Regulated entities
have six years from the date of the agency action to bring a
lawsuit seeking to have it changed or invalidated; after
that, facial challenges must end. By doing this, Congress
can make clear that lawsuits bringing facial claims against
agencies are not personal attack vehicles for new entities
created just for that purpose. So, while the Court has made
a mess of this pivotal statute, and the consequences are pro-
found, “the ball is in Congress’ court.” Ledbetter v. Good-
year Tire & Rubber Co., 

 (2007) (Gins-
burg, J., dissenting).