Page:Wilkins v. United States (2023).pdf/12

Rh could challenge the United States’ title to real property,’ ” and the plaintiff’s claim fell “within the Act’s scope.” Id., at 841–842 (quoting Block, 461 U. S., at 286). Second, the Court “then determine[d] whether [the] suit was brought within the relevant limitations period.” Mottaz, 476 U. S., at 841. The Court concluded that the plaintiff had notice over 12 years before she sued, and “[h]er claim [was] therefore barred.” Id., at 843–844. Neither step in the Court’s analysis “turn[ed] on” whether any time limits were “ ‘technically jurisdictional.’ ” Arbaugh, 546 U. S., at 512 (quoting Steel Co., 523 U. S., at 91).

General statements in the opinion about waivers of immunity cannot change this basic fact. At the outset of its analysis, the Court observed that “the terms of [the United States’] waiver of sovereign immunity define the extent of the court’s jurisdiction” and that “ ‘a statute of limitations … constitutes a condition on the waiver.’ ” Mottaz, 476 U. S., at 841 (quoting Block, 461 U. S., at 287). Neither of these statements, however, played a role in determining which statute applied or whether the plaintiff brought her claim within 12 years after it accrued. There is also no indication in the opinion that the parties raised tolling or other equitable exceptions. As such, “ ‘the legal character’ ” of the time limit was never “ ‘at issue.’ ” Reed Elsevier, 559 U. S., at 169, n. 8 (quoting Zipes, 455 U. S., at 395).

The Government also points to Mottaz’s procedural background section. Buried in a paragraph recounting a tangled procedural history, the Court remarked that the Government raised the Quiet Title Act, “apparently for the first time,” in a petition for rehearing. 476 U. S., at 840. This supposedly reveals that the Court sua sponte and sub silentio raised, considered, and rejected an argument that the Government had forfeited the Quiet Title Act’s time limit, doing so all because the time limit was jurisdictional. Yet a background section is an unlikely place for such a ruling. This is particularly true where, as the word “apparently”