With essential unanimity, though with an array of concurrences in one of them, the Supreme Court ruled against government parties in three cases, two of them in favor of homeowners, and in property rights and environmental enforcement cases, and a third, upholding the right of appeal by a prison guard charged with causing a detainee's beating.
The Supreme Court issued a single opinion today. Wilkins v. United States concerns a property rights dispute between the federal government and two owners of land near the Bitterroot National Forest in rural Montana to which the government claims an easement that, it argues, includes public access, which the petitioners dispute. They, therefore, sued the government under the Quiet Title Act (the “Act”), which allows challenges to the United States’ rights in real property. The government moved to dismiss on the ground that the petitioners’ claim is barred by the Act’s 12-year statute of limitations. See 28 U. S. C. §2409a(g). The issue before the Court was whether the time bar is jurisdictional or, as the Court held in a 6-3 decision, a nonjurisdictional claims-processing rule.
Blog Editors
Recent Updates
- TikTok, the Clock Won’t Stop, and Cases Involving Court Jurisdiction Narrowly Focused - SCOTUS Today
- The Second Circuit Revives Sarah Palin’s Defamation Suit Against The New York Times
- How Do Litigators Build the Perfect Jury in a Polarized World? – Speaking of Litigation Video Podcast
- Third Circuit Holds that the Public Disclosure Bar Precludes Qui Tam Actions Based on Information Available on Publicly Accessible Databases
- Supreme Court of Ohio Rules on a Peer-Review Privilege Issue in Stull v. Summa