Corner Post Helps Americans Challenge Government Decisions

US Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett reportedly began her announcement of the decision in Corner Post Inc. v. Board of Governors with a quip that the case—about when an Administrative Procedure Act claim begins to accrue for statute of limitations purposes—wasn’t the one that people were there to hear.

But while that day’s blockbuster decision on presidential immunity from criminal prosecution is important, the court’s decision in favor of Corner Post may affect Americans more directly.

Corner Post believes the Federal Reserve improperly calculated the maximum fees merchants must pay on debit card transactions and sought judicial review. The lower courts had dismissed the case as time barred under the six-year statute of limitations applicable to, among other claims, suits brought pursuant to the APA.

The APA provides for judicial review of actions taken by the administrative state—those departments and agencies that sit within or sometimes outside of the executive branch, led by the president.

The government asserted that the six-year period starts to run out as soon as an agency acts, and most lower courts adopted that view. In this case, the agency action was the Federal Reserve’s publication of a maximum fee regulation in 2011.

But Corner Post didn’t open its doors until 2018, a year after the statute of limitations period ran out, at least under the government’s analysis. The Supreme Court rejected the government’s argument, giving the text of the statute its plain meaning and holding that an APA plaintiff’s cause of action doesn’t begin to accrue until the plaintiff is injured by the agency’s action.

Considering the growth of the administrative state, the APA is an important tool for Americans seeking to challenge government decisions. But that statutory guarantee only fulfills its promise if litigants can get to court.

The government has many legal doctrines at its disposal to stop courts from reviewing the merits of an APA case: standing (who can sue), ripeness (when you can sue), mootness (when your case can no longer proceed) and statutes of limitations (when you can no longer bring a suit).

These statutory and court-created restrictions often make sense for reasons of administrability and efficiency. But sometimes the results are unfair, preventing diligent plaintiffs with otherwise meritorious arguments from being heard by a judge.

The Supreme Court’s decision was relatively easy given the simplicity of the statutory text it was asked to interpret. Some limitation periods begin to run from the time of the relevant event—for example, the issuance of a regulation or other determination. But the default statute of limitations that applies to suits against the US requires complaints to be brought within six years after the right of action first accrues, and a plaintiff’s claim can’t accrue under the APA until they are injured.

The result in this case isn’t a partisan one; Corner Post’s argument was that the government hadn’t regulated enough. And the ruling in this plaintiff’s favor will benefit any new or newly affected plaintiff seeking to bring an APA challenge to any federal agency action, such as allegedly inadequate environmental regulations, permitting decisions, or labor rules.

Playing out a separation of powers theme in this term’s administrative law opinions, both the majority and the dissent in Corner Post recognized that if Congress wants a different result, the ball is in its court to decide on the relevant trade-offs in setting the time for challenging government actions.

Congress has conferred vast swaths of authority on the administrative state and seems to be largely unwilling or unable to police agencies’ use of that authority. The responsibility falls largely on the shoulders of Americans who are affected by regulations, and the APA’s provision for judicial review is critical to that effort.

During congressional consideration of the APA in 1946, then-Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick McCarran proclaimed it a “bill of rights for the hundreds of thousands of Americans whose affairs are controlled or regulated” by federal agencies.

For now, Corner Post may not be the decision the spectators packed the courtroom to hear, but it’s significant for the individuals and businesses affected by administrative actions every day.

The case is Corner Post Inc. v. Board of Governors, U.S., 22-1008, 7/1/24.

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg Industry Group, Inc., the publisher of Bloomberg Law and Bloomberg Tax, or its owners.

Author Information

Molly Nixon is an attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation, a public interest law firm that defends Americans’ liberty against government overreach and abuse.

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