CTS Corp. v. Waldburger
The Supreme Court ruled that a federal law protecting people who discover pollution-related injuries late does not override state "statutes of repose" — laws that permanently cut off lawsuits a fixed number of years after a company's last relevant act, regardless of when the harm is discovered.
Because the federal statute only mentioned 'statutes of limitations' and not the different concept of 'statutes of repose,' the Court held North Carolina's 10-year cutoff still barred a nuisance suit filed 24 years after a company sold contaminated property.
“This would be an awkward way to mandate the pre-emption of two different time periods with two different purposes.”
Explaining why the federal law's singular phrasing suggests it covers only one type of time limit.
How it got here: A federal trial court dismissed the suit under North Carolina's 10-year cutoff law; the Fourth Circuit reversed, and CTS asked the Supreme Court to review that ruling.
The Case in Depth
What happened
CTS Corporation ran an electronics plant in North Carolina, storing toxic chemicals, until it sold the property in 1987. Later owners of the land and neighboring landowners sued in 2011, saying they learned in 2009 that their well water was contaminated by leftover chemicals, and sought cleanup costs and damages from CTS.
The question before the Court
When a federal law paused certain state deadlines for toxic-contamination lawsuits, did that law also override state laws that cut off lawsuits completely after a fixed number of years?
The Court's answer
No — the federal discovery-rule statute does not override state statutes of repose. The Court held that the federal law only replaces the starting date of a state "statute of limitations" (a deadline that runs from when an injury is discovered) with a later, injury-discovery-based date. It does not touch a different kind of law, a "statute of repose," which cuts off lawsuits completely a fixed number of years after a company's last act, regardless of when harm is discovered.
Because the federal text used the phrase "statute of limitations" repeatedly and never mentioned "statute of repose," and because other clues in the text (like its allowance for pausing deadlines for minors) fit only limitations periods, the Court concluded Congress did not mean to preempt repose laws. So North Carolina's 10-year repose period still barred the landowners' suit, even though they said they could not have discovered the contamination sooner.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
People harmed by pollution that surfaces long after a company's last act may find their claims permanently barred in the roughly dozen states with these repose deadlines, even if they could not have known about the contamination sooner. Companies operating in those states gain more certainty that liability ends after a fixed period.
What changes now
The Fourth Circuit's ruling is reversed, meaning North Carolina's 10-year cutoff applies and the landowners' suit against CTS is barred despite their claim that they could not have discovered the contamination sooner. This is a final decision on the merits interpreting the federal statute, and it resolves a split among lower courts on whether the law covers statutes of repose, leaving the outcome to affect similar cases in the small number of states with repose laws.
What this does not decide
The Court's ruling only addresses whether this specific federal statute pre-empts state statutes of repose in pollution cases; it does not address the fairness or wisdom of repose laws generally, nor does it disturb the federal law's protection for plaintiffs under ordinary statutes of limitations.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence in part — Justice Scalia
Justice Scalia agreed with nearly all of the majority's reasoning but refused to join the part relying on a presumption that ambiguous pre-emption laws should be read narrowly to favor states. He argued that pre-emption statutes should simply be read using their ordinary meaning like any other statute, without a special thumb on the scale for or against pre-emption.
Dissent — Justice Ginsburg
Justice Ginsburg argued the majority's distinction between statutes of limitations and statutes of repose ignored that North Carolina placed its repose provision in the very same paragraph governing when claims accrue, making it functionally a limitations rule without a discovery exception. She pointed to the law's legislative history, which she said showed Congress meant to fix exactly the problem repose periods cause, and would have affirmed the Fourth Circuit's ruling that the federal discovery rule overrides the state cutoff.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court distinguished two kinds of time limits on lawsuits: statutes of limitations, which start running when a person discovers an injury, and statutes of repose, which cut off liability a fixed number of years after a defendant's last act, no matter when the injury is discovered.
- A key difference is that statutes of limitations can be paused, or 'tolled,' for plaintiffs who were unable to sue on time through no fault of their own, while statutes of repose generally cannot be paused for any reason because they reflect a legislative decision to give defendants permanent freedom from liability after a set period.
- Looking at the text of the federal law, the Court found it used the phrase 'statute of limitations' four times and never mentioned 'statute of repose,' and it framed the exception to state law narrowly as applying only to the 'commencement date' of a limitations period.
- The Court found further textual clues supporting this reading: the law spoke of a single limitations period and assumed a lawsuit already existed and could still be brought, while a repose period can prevent a lawsuit from ever coming into existence in the first place.
- The law also included a special tolling rule for minors and incompetent plaintiffs, which only makes sense for statutes of limitations, since repose periods are not usually paused for anyone — reinforcing that Congress meant to reach only limitations periods.
- The Court rejected the argument that Congress's broader remedial goal of helping pollution victims required reading the law to also cover repose periods, noting Congress left many areas of state tort law untouched and did not show a clear intent to override repose statutes too.