Corner Post, Inc. v. Board of Governors
The Supreme Court ruled that the six-year deadline to sue over a federal agency rule doesn't start until the specific business or person bringing the lawsuit is first harmed by that rule — meaning a company formed years after a rule was issued can still challenge it within six years of opening its doors.
The decision effectively removes any fixed endpoint for lawsuits challenging existing agency regulations, opening decades of federal rulemaking to perpetual legal attack by newly formed entities — a ruling the dissent warned, combined with the Court's separate decision this term ending judicial deference to agencies, could 'devastate the functioning of the Federal Government.'
How it got here: The federal district court dismissed the lawsuit as time-barred; the Eighth Circuit affirmed; the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case to resolve a split among the federal courts of appeals.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Corner Post is a truckstop and convenience store in Watford City, North Dakota that opened in 2018. Like most merchants, it pays small "interchange fees" on every debit card transaction. Congress directed the Federal Reserve to regulate those fees in 2010, and the Fed issued a rule capping them at about 21 cents per transaction in 2011. Corner Post joined a lawsuit in 2021 arguing the cap is set too high under the statute — but lower courts ruled the case was filed too late under the six-year deadline.
The question before the Court
Can a business that didn't exist when a federal regulation was issued challenge that rule years later, arguing the six-year filing deadline hasn't started running for it yet?
The Court's answer
Yes — the six-year deadline for challenging a federal agency rule starts running only when the specific plaintiff is first harmed by that rule, not when the rule was originally published. A claim "accrues" — and the clock begins — only when a plaintiff has a complete and present right to sue, which for APA claims requires being actually injured by a final agency action. Because Corner Post didn't open until 2018, its six-year clock started then, not in 2011 when the Federal Reserve issued the rule.
The Court rejected the Federal Reserve's argument that the clock starts for everyone the moment a rule is finalized. That approach, the Court held, would transform the statute from a plaintiff-focused "statute of limitations" — which runs from when the plaintiff's claim arises — into a defendant-focused "statute of repose" — which runs from the defendant's last act. The statute's own language ("right of action first accrues") is the standard plaintiff-centric formula, and Congress used finality-based language in other statutes when it wanted a different result, but chose not to do so here.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Businesses in regulated industries — from financial services to energy to food production — can now challenge existing agency rules within six years of first being affected, no matter how old the rule is. Agencies face potential lawsuits over decades-old decisions, and established companies that built their operations around settled rules may find those rules suddenly back in legal jeopardy.
What changes now
The case returns to the lower courts for proceedings on the merits of Corner Post's challenge to the Federal Reserve's debit-card fee rule. More broadly, the ruling means any business or entity newly harmed by a long-standing federal regulation can file a facial APA challenge within six years of first being affected — there is no longer a hard cutoff tied to when the rule was originally published. The Court noted that Congress remains free to amend §2401(a) or enact a specific statute of limitations for APA claims.
What this does not decide
The Court expressly declined to decide whether the APA authorizes courts to fully vacate (set aside for everyone) an unlawful agency rule, as opposed to merely protecting the specific parties in the lawsuit — it assumed vacatur is available without resolving the question. The ruling also does not address whether a party that didn't exist during rulemaking can bring procedural challenges to the rulemaking process itself.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Kavanaugh
Justice Kavanaugh agreed with the majority but wrote separately to address a separate, important issue: Corner Post can obtain relief in this case only if the APA authorizes courts to vacate — fully set aside — unlawful agency rules. He argued that the APA's text directing courts to 'set aside' agency action has always meant vacatur, and that the government's recent campaign to eliminate vacatur as a remedy would shut the courthouse doors on entire classes of APA suits brought by unregulated but adversely affected parties, including competitor suits, environmental challenges, and workplace-safety litigation.
Dissent — Justice Jackson
Justice Jackson argued that the word 'accrues' is context-dependent, and in the administrative-law context it means when the rule is finalized — consistent with every other statute that sets a deadline for challenging an agency action. The majority's plaintiff-specific rule effectively eliminates the statute of limitations for facial APA challenges, since there will always be new entities whose personal clock hasn't run. Combined with the Court's concurrent decision overruling Chevron deference, she warned, the ruling opens every existing federal regulation to perpetual challenge and 'has the potential to devastate the functioning of the Federal Government.'
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The APA allows people injured by agency action to sue (§702) but limits review to 'final agency action' (§704). These requirements work together: both injury and finality must be present before a lawsuit can be filed at all — so no complete and present cause of action exists until both conditions are met.
- The six-year deadline in 28 U.S.C. §2401(a) runs from when 'the right of action first accrues.' The Court applied the word 'accrues' in its well-settled traditional sense: a claim accrues when the plaintiff has a complete and present cause of action — i.e., when she can actually file suit and get relief. Legal dictionaries from 1948 onward uniformly defined accrual this way.
- Combining those two points: because an APA plaintiff cannot file suit until she is injured by final agency action, the six-year clock cannot start before her injury occurs. The clock is therefore plaintiff-specific — it starts separately for each plaintiff when they first suffer harm, not when the rule first takes effect for the world at large.
- The Federal Reserve argued that in the administrative-law context, 'accrual' should mean something different — the clock should start for everyone when a rule is finalized, regardless of when any particular plaintiff is hurt. The Court found no textual support for this departure: §2401(a)'s language ('right of action first accrues') is the standard plaintiff-centric formula; the statute focuses on 'the complaint' tied to 'the right of action' — this plaintiff's right, not anyone else's.
- The distinction between a statute of limitations (plaintiff-focused, starting when the claim accrues) and a statute of repose (defendant-focused, starting when the defendant last acted) proved decisive. The Federal Reserve's reading would turn §2401(a) into a statute of repose, but its text marks it as a statute of limitations. Congress has used finality-based language in other review statutes — like the Hobbs Act's 60-day deadline from 'entry' of an order — showing it knows how to write a repose-type deadline when it wants one.
- Policy arguments about regulatory stability were rejected as insufficient to override clear statutory text. The Court also noted countervailing values: the APA's basic presumption that anyone injured by agency action deserves access to court, and the 'deep-rooted historic tradition that everyone should have his own day in court.' Congress may fix any poor fit between §2401(a) and modern APA litigation if it chooses.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Green v. Brennan (578 U.S. 547)
Confirmed as the controlling statement of the standard plaintiff-centric accrual rule for limitations periods.
Reaffirms Crown Coat Front Co. v. United States (386 U.S. 503)
Its holding — that §2401(a) starts the clock when a plaintiff is legally entitled to sue — affirmed as supporting Corner Post's position; reliance on its dicta rejected.
Distinguishes Reading Co. v. Koons (271 U.S. 58)
Its unique wrongful-death context — where real parties in interest could immediately act — does not undermine the general plaintiff-centric accrual rule.