Corner Post, Inc. v. Board of Governors
The Supreme Court ruled that a North Dakota truck stop could sue over a 2011 federal rule capping debit-card transaction fees, even though the business did not open until 2018, because the six-year legal deadline starts running only when the specific plaintiff is first harmed — not when the agency published the rule.
The decision means any new business has six years from when it first feels the effects of a federal regulation to challenge that rule in court, effectively removing any fixed expiration date on lawsuits challenging agency regulations and leaving long-settled rules perpetually open to fresh legal attack.
How it got here: Lower courts dismissed Corner Post's suit as filed too late; the Supreme Court took the case to resolve a disagreement among federal appeals courts over when the six-year clock starts for APA challenges.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Corner Post is a truck stop and convenience store in North Dakota that opened in 2018. When customers pay by debit card, Corner Post must pay an interchange fee to the card-issuing bank. Congress in 2010 directed the Federal Reserve Board to cap these fees, and the Board issued a rule in 2011 setting a maximum of 21 cents per transaction. Corner Post joined a 2021 lawsuit arguing the rule allows fees higher than the statute permits.
The question before the Court
Does the six-year deadline for suing the federal government start running from when an agency publishes a regulation, or from when a specific business is first harmed by that regulation?
The Court's answer
From when the specific business is first harmed. The Court held that the six-year deadline in the general federal statute of limitations — which bars suits not filed "within six years after the right of action first accrues" — begins running only when the particular plaintiff is injured by a final agency action, not when the agency published the rule. Because Corner Post first opened in 2018 and joined the lawsuit in 2021, its challenge was timely.
The Federal Reserve argued the clock started in 2011, before Corner Post even existed, which would have barred the suit entirely. The Court rejected that reading, holding that Congress used standard accrual language that has always been tied to the specific plaintiff's right to sue — not to when some hypothetical earlier plaintiff could have sued. Treating § 2401(a) as starting the clock at agency publication would transform it from a plaintiff-focused statute of limitations into a defendant-focused statute of repose, which the statute's text does not support.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Businesses entering any regulated industry can now challenge existing federal rules within six years of opening, regardless of how old those rules are. Established companies that built operations around regulations they believed were legally settled may face renewed uncertainty. Federal agencies can expect litigation over rules once thought safely beyond challenge — including decades-old regulations governing workplace safety, consumer protection, and environmental standards.
What changes now
The Eighth Circuit's dismissal is reversed and Corner Post's case is sent back to be decided on the merits — whether the Federal Reserve's fee cap actually violates the Durbin Amendment. Beyond this case, the ruling means any business formed after a federal regulation was issued has six years from when it first felt the rule's effects to file a facial challenge, potentially reopening many long-settled agency regulations to new lawsuits from newly formed entities.
What this does not decide
The Court explicitly left open whether the APA authorizes courts to fully cancel ("vacate") an unlawful agency rule — a question Justice Kavanaugh addressed in his concurrence but the majority assumed without deciding. The Court also did not resolve whether entities formed after a rulemaking can claim injury from procedural defects in how that rule was made.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Kavanaugh
Justice Kavanaugh agreed with the majority's ruling but wrote separately to address a threshold issue the majority left open: whether the APA authorizes courts to fully cancel, or 'vacate,' an unlawful agency rule. Because Corner Post is not directly regulated by the fee rule, an injunction against enforcement would provide no relief — only vacatur would help. He argued the APA's phrase 'set aside' has always meant vacatur, that longstanding precedent confirms it, and that the federal government's recent campaign to eliminate vacatur as a remedy would shut entire categories of plaintiffs — businesses harmed by rules that regulate others, environmental plaintiffs, workers — out of court entirely.
Dissent — Justice Jackson
Justice Jackson argued that 'accrues' is a flexible, context-dependent term, and that in the administrative-law context Congress has always pegged limitations periods to final agency action — not to any individual plaintiff's injury. APA facial challenges focus on what the agency did, making plaintiff-specific accrual illogical. She warned the ruling effectively eliminates any fixed deadline for APA challenges, allowing every new commercial entity to attack any regulation ever issued, and — combined with the Court's same-term overruling of Chevron deference in Loper Bright — threatens to destabilize the entire federal regulatory system.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court started with two APA provisions that work together: § 702 requires a plaintiff to be 'injured in fact' by agency action before she can sue, and § 704 limits judicial review to 'final agency action.' Together, these mean no APA suit can be filed until the plaintiff suffers an injury from a completed agency decision — injury and finality are both necessary conditions.
- The applicable limitations period, 28 U.S.C. § 2401(a), bars suits not filed 'within six years after the right of action first accrues.' The word 'accrue' had a settled meaning in 1948 when the provision was enacted: a right accrues when the plaintiff has a 'complete and present cause of action' — meaning when she can file suit and obtain relief. Legal dictionaries of the era uniformly confirmed that a claim does not accrue on the date the defendant acts, but only after the plaintiff suffers the injury needed to press her claim in court.
- Because an APA plaintiff cannot sue until injured by final agency action, her cause of action is not complete and present until that injury occurs. The limitations clock therefore does not start when the agency publishes a rule — it starts when the specific plaintiff is harmed. Corner Post, which opened in 2018, was first injured by Regulation II at that time, not in 2011.
- Section 2401(a) is a statute of limitations — plaintiff-focused, triggered by when the plaintiff's claim accrues — not a statute of repose, which is defendant-focused and triggered by when the defendant last acted. The Board's interpretation would convert § 2401(a) into the latter, but the statute's language squarely reflects the former. Congress knew how to write finality-based deadlines (e.g., the Hobbs Act's '60 days after entry' of an order) and chose not to use that language in § 2401(a).
- The Board argued that dozens of other statutes start the clock at final agency action, showing a standard administrative-law practice. The Court answered that those textually distinct statutes — which use 'entry' or 'promulgation' rather than 'right of action first accrues' — actually prove the point: Congress has the tools to write finality-based deadlines and did not use them here. Reading a finality trigger into § 2401(a) would give identical language different meanings in different contexts, an outcome the Court declined to adopt.
- The Board's policy arguments — that agencies and settled rules need a firm six-year cutoff — do not override the statute's plain text. The Court noted that regulations can still be challenged in enforcement proceedings, and that courts handling belated suits can often rely on existing appellate precedent upholding the rule. The APA's basic presumption that anyone injured by agency action should have access to judicial review, and the 'deep-rooted historic tradition that everyone should have his own day in court,' support the plaintiff-centric reading.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Green v. Brennan (578 U.S. 547)
Reaffirmed as establishing the standard plaintiff-centric rule that a claim accrues when the plaintiff can file suit and obtain relief.
Reaffirms Crown Coat Front Co. v. United States (386 U.S. 503)
Reaffirmed as supporting the traditional accrual rule; the Court rejected the Board's reading of Crown Coat as authorizing a finality-based trigger.
Reaffirms Bay Area Laundry and Dry Cleaning Pension Trust Fund v. Ferbar Corp. of Cal. (522 U.S. 192)
Reaffirmed for the principle that a claim does not accrue until the plaintiff can file suit and obtain relief.