No. of Recommendations: 2
...is another important case that was dropped today, and one that isn't being discussed much.
The background:
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/22-100....
Since it opened for business in 2018, petitioner Corner Post, like most merchants, has accepted debit cards as a form of payment. Debit card transactions require merchants to pay an “interchange fee” to the bank that issued the card. The fee amount is set by the payment networks (such as Visa and MasterCard) that process the transaction. In 2010 Congress tasked the Federal Reserve Board with making sure that interchange fees were “reasonable and proportional to the cost incurred by the issuer with respect to the transaction.” 15 U. S. C. §1693o–2(a)(3)(A). Discharging this duty, in 2011 the Board published Regulation II, which sets a maximum interchange fee of $0.21 per transaction plus .05% of the transaction’s value.
In 2021, Corner Post joined a suit brought against the Board under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). The complaint challenged Regulation II on the ground that it allows higher interchange fees than the statute permits. The District Court dismissed the suit as time-barred under 28 U. S. C. §2401(a), the default six-year statute of limitations applicable to suits against the United States. The Eighth Circuit affirmed.So. If an agency issues something that's in violation of the APA and it's been 6 years since it's discovery, is that it?
The Supremes said, "nope".
An APA claim does not accrue for purposes of §2401(a)’s 6-year statute of limitations until the plaintiff is injured by final agency action.The clock shall start on injury, not from the data of the rule or action. This is another case where the USSC nails the law.
This *seems* like common sense, but that's not how the federal government has been operating for the past several years. When you take this case in isolation it doesn't sound like much...but when you stack it with
Loper Bright, Jarkesy and
Garland v Cargill we've seen the administrative state's power curtailed drastically.
Fans of regular Constitutional separation of powers should rejoice: Nameless federal bureaucrats can't act as judge, jury and executioner - or in this case, legislator, enforcement agent and judge - any longer. The regular Constitutional order of Congress passing laws, the Executive enforcing them and the Judiciary adjudicating them has been restored.
This is how the country is supposed to work. Jackson's dissent today sums up the position of the modern left:
At the end of a momentous Term, this much is clear: The tsunami of lawsuits against agencies that the Court’s holdings in this case and Loper Bright have authorized has the potential to devastate the functioning of the Federal Government. Uhh....and? So what?
Even more to the present point, that result simply cannot be what Congress intended when it enacted legislation that stood up and funded federal agencies and vested them with authority to set the ground rules for the individuals and entities that participate in the our economy and our society. It is utterly inconceivable that §2401(a)’s statute of limitations was meant to permit fresh attacks on settled regulations from all new comers forever. Yet, that is what the majority holds today.
But Congress still has a chance to address this absurdity and forestall the coming chaos. It can opt to correct this Court’s mistake by clarifying that the statutes it enacts are designed to facilitate the functioning of agencies, not to hobble them. Duh. That's Congress' job. We don't create federal agencies and invest them with unlimited power because governing is messy. We actually don't do that at all: the Constitution is the overarching Law Of The Land, and it mandates a specific procedure in how to create laws in this country. We don't delegate this power to rando federal agencies because of some "tsunami". If any such "tsunami" appears, it will be because these same agencies have overstepped their bounds.
The court took a chainsaw to the administrative state this session, and we should all be happy.
