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
- Ghost Guns and the Bankruptcy Code: Neither Provides Ammunition for Dismissing Actions - SCOTUS Today
- Eyes on the Evidence: Powerful Legal Presentations – Speaking of Litigation Video Podcast
- Massachusetts High Court To Weigh In on Forfeiture-for-Solicitation Provisions in Era of Massachusetts Noncompetition Agreement Act
- Tougher Immigration Enforcement at the State Level: Tennessee Law Supplements the New Trump Administration’s Immigration Enforcement Policies
- Unusual Combinations of Justices Denying Veterans’ Claim but Requiring Executive to Make Foreign Aid Payments to Contractors - SCOTUS Today