United States v. June (13-1075)

argument 13-1075

United States v. June

Supreme Court of the United States 53 min 4 speakers 8 chapters transcribed 6 days ago official recording ↗

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What is the central dispute over equitable tolling in United States v. June?

John G. Roberts 0:00

We'll hear argument next this morning in case thirteen ten seventy five uh United States versus June.

0:07

Ms.

John G. Roberts 0:07

Prelagar?

Unknown 0:09

Mr Chief Justice, and may it please the court. There is good reason to believe that Congress did not want the equitable tolling doctrine to apply to the FTCA time bar. And I'd like to begin by focusing on a few of the issues that arose last hour that are particularly important to understanding Congress's intent. To start with the questions, Justice Scalia and Justice Kagan that you were asking at the end about the nature of our rule and what separates this statute from other statutes. I want to be very clear, we're not urging a categorical rule about all pre-urban statutes. Here we have statute specific evidence about the FTCA that makes clear that Congress did not want this particular enactment to be subject to equitable tolling.

Unknown 0:50

And that's most clear of course from the plain text and those twelve words. Every claim against the United States cognizable shall be forever barred unless that was lifted, Justice Scalia's you said verbatim, from the Tucker Act context where it had been repeatedly interpreted as a jurisdictional limit not subject to tolling. You don't

John G. Roberts 1:08

doubt that if the if those words appeared in a statute that Congress passed tomorrow, we would not interpret them as a jurisdictional bar, would we?

Unknown 1:18

Mr. Chief Justice, I think it would depend on whether there was an indication that Congress was intending to incorporate those words from the Tucker Act context. I thought at least for The statue passed tomorrow. We have the clear statement rule that we have said we have told Congress. If you don't want to have any tone, if you want this to be jurisdictional, absolutely rigid, you say so and of course Congress, it's your call. But we're not going to interpret. A statute that does it. Make that clear statement. as jurisdiction. But this court has also emphasized, Justice Ginsburg, that there are no magic words that are required in this context. And I think Bowles versus Russell makes that particularly clear.

Unknown 2:03

There those words shall and notice of appeal were interpreted to have jurisdictional import. And so too here in this context because this court had before had before said that provision about uh how much time you have to appeal. That that was jurisdictional. And I thought the court's position was we decided it once And we're gonna stick with it. But if we haven't decided it And we look at it Just for fear statement. It was not only Section 2107 in in that context, but also predecessor provisions and other similar statutory requirements. And that's what the court said in Henderson. When a long line of this court's decisions interpreting similar requirements have said that those requirements are jurisdictional, then we'll presume that Congress intended the same meaning.

Unknown 2:55

Here we have the identical language that had that jurisdictional label attached to it. I don't I don't quite get the identical language because shall Bigard. I mean that's common to a lot of Statute of limitations, y you're not suggesting that this would be different if it just said shall be guard rather than forever barred, are you? No, we're saying that when Congress lifted and incorporated word for word the then prevailing Tucker Act time bar, it clearly was signalling an intent to incorporate the judicial interpretations of that Tucker Act time bar. And and Justice Ginsburg, I I think this is an important point about those early Tucker Act cases. Those were not drived by jurisdictional rulings. Those were carefully considered decisions that attached jurisdictional consequences

Unknown 3:42

to the the Tucker Act time bar and said that it couldn't be waived. It wasn't subject to equitable tolling. So this wasn't an a a an argument that was made in passing or something that the court didn't carefully consider. Rather Court made uh uh a decision in those cases that that language had jurisdictional import.

Anthony M. Kennedy 4:11

uh doesn't generally say what it wants with respect to some kind of procedural rule, maybe because Congress doesn't usually think about it.