United States v. Kwai Fun Wong (13-1074)

argument 13-1074

United States v. Kwai Fun Wong

Supreme Court of the United States 58 min 6 speakers 8 chapters transcribed 7 days ago official recording ↗

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What is the central dispute over the FTCA’s time‑bar provision in United States v. Wong?

John G. Roberts 0:00

We'll hear argument first this morning in case thirteen ten seventy four. United States versus Wong. Mr. Martinez?

Tony Martinez 0:09

Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the court. Three features of the FTCA's text and history make clear that Congress did not want to allow equitable tolling of its time bar. First, Congress drafted that bar in nineteen forty six using jurisdictional language transplanted from the Parallel Tucker Act context.

John G. Roberts 0:26

Second is the word jurisdiction used?

Tony Martinez 0:29

The word jurisdiction was not used in in that language, uh Your Honor, but the court had interpreted that language uh in the Tucker Act context in six cases, beginning with the uh the court's decision in Kendall in eighteen eighty three. And that decision uh th those line of cases had made very clear not only that the time bar was jurisdictional.

John G. Roberts 0:48

That's the court. Congress did not say jurisdiction. And I I'm sure you're well aware At this point. for some time now has been explaining A jurisdiction is a word of many meanings. Too many meanings. And has tried to distinguish jurisdiction meaning subject matter or personal. from rules once a case Bitch jurisdiction. how it will be processed in the court. And it seems to be a time limitation. Even A very stringent time limitation. Is not jurisdictional.

Tony Martinez 1:30

Uh y Your Honor, I think uh two points on that. First of all, I think that when Congress acted in nineteen forty six and it transplanted the the identical words of the statute that uh the Tucker uh statute governing Tuckerak claims, Congress understood itself to be incorporating the same settled meaning. And those words had already been given a jurisdictional meaning by this court.

Kathryn Hackett King 1:50

Jurisdictional in the narrow sense.

Tony Martinez 1:52

I in in the sense that uh that that it i if uh that it it went to the court's ability to hear the case and jurisdictional consequences were attached to those uh to those words. In other words, uh i the the issue had could not be waived by the government and no equitable tolling was available. In this court's more recent cases, um I think the ones that Justice Ginsburg you were referring to in the Henderson case. Uh what this Court said was that uh was that the Court will presume that a provision is jurisdictional when a long line of this Court's cases, undisturbed by Congress, has treated a similar provision as jurisdictional. And in this case we have a statute that had been interpreted by a long line of this court's decisions, uh all in the Tucker Act context, very similar identical.

John G. Roberts 2:37

The Tucker Act, I think Uh the the line that the court drew it said, If we've characterized these as jurisdictional in the prior case. We will stick with that. But in the future we're not doing that anymore.

Tony Martinez 2:51

But I think what the Court has said, uh both in the cases addressing jurisdiction and in the cases uh in the Irwin line of cases addressing the available of uh the availability of equitable tolling. Is that the court is not going to look for magic words in the statute. It's going to uh look to the text, the context, and the relevant historical treatment, and that the overarching purpose of the inquiry is going to be to find out what Congress understood itself to be doing at the time that it enacted the statute.

Anthony M. Kennedy 3:17

But Mr Martinez, wouldn't that argument suggest that Er Irwin was really only good as to new statutes, as to statutes that were passed after Irwin?

Tony Martinez 3:27

I don't think so, Your Honor. I think I think what the court did in Irwin, it didn't conduct a lengthy historical analysis of all statutes that had ever been passed. But what it did was it it based its its conclusion and and the presumption on a kind of logical inference. The court essentially reasoned, as I understood the decision, as follows. The Court said that when con we think in the mind run of cases, when Congress wants to take the big step of waiving sovereign immunity, it's reasonable to think that Congress also likely wanted to take the small step of allowing equitable tolling. And that may well have been true in nineteen ninety when Irwin was announced. It may have even been true in nineteen seventy two when the statute that was addressed in Irwin was announced.