SCOTUS Expands Opportunities to Challenge Agency Action in Corner Post

October Term 2023 was one of the most consequential Supreme Court terms for administrative law in living memory. In Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, the Court mothballed the 40-year-old doctrine of Chevron deference, liberating courts to “say what the law is” without deference to agency interpretations. And in SEC v. Jarkesy, the Court reinvigorated the Seventh Amendment right to trial by jury, curtailing agencies’ ability to tilt the odds in their favor by pursuing enforcement actions in their own in-house tribunals. But beyond those blockbusters, one of the Court’s less-heralded decisions from last term promises to have major consequences for businesses affected by federal regulations: Corner Post v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

B.C.P., or Before Corner Post

Corner Post involves one of the more mundane features of our legal architecture: a statute of limitations. More specifically, the case addresses the default statute of limitations that applies to suits against the United States, which must be brought “within six years after the right of action first accrues” under 28 U.S.C. § 2401(a).