Supreme Court differentiates stare decisis particulars

The court of claims statute of limitations requires an automatic consideration of a lawsuit’s timeliness irregardless of Government waiver, the Supreme Court held last January 8.

The case, John R. Sand & Gravel v. U.S., 06-1164, involved allegations of the holder of a mining lease that the EPA had taken land without just compensation thru activities on that land such as erecting fences. EPA initially invoked the § 2501 statute of limitations in its defense, but later withdrew that, conceded that some of the claims were, indeed, timely.

The long-standing stasis, the Court said, citing Kendall v. U.S. from 1883, was that interpretations of the statute set out a “more absolute, ‘jurisdictional,’ limitation period,” and the fact that “the language of the statute has changed slightly since 1883 made no difference because there had been no expression of congressional intent to change the underlying substantive law.”

Petitioner’s stance has been based on the Court’s decision in 1990 of Irwin v. Dept .of Veteran’s Affairs, which had held that the same rebuttable presumption of equitable tolling applicable to suits against private defendants should also apply to suits against the U.S..

The Court’s holding, though, was that the subject statutes in the two cases were similar, but different, resulting in their not producing “unworkable” law.