Page:Wilkins v. United States (2023).pdf/18

Rh Court reaffirmed this “settled principl[e]” in the specific context of “[a] statute of limitations requiring that a suit against the Government be brought within a certain time period.” Id., at 608. Such a requirement, the Court explained, “is one of ” the “terms of [the United States’] consent to be sued” and, therefore, “define[s] th[e] court’s jurisdiction to entertain the suit.” Ibid. (emphasis added; internal quotation marks omitted).

Those straightforward principles resolve this case. The Quiet Title Act partially waives the immunity of the United States by granting federal district courts “exclusive original jurisdiction of civil actions under section 2409a to quiet title to an estate or interest in real property in which an interest is claimed by the United States.” 28 U. S. C. §1346(f). This provision’s cross-reference to §2409a incorporates several conditions on this waiver. For example, the Act specifies that the United States “shall not be disturbed in possession or control” of contested land “pending a final judgment or decree, the conclusion of any appeal therefrom, and sixty days,” and “if the final determination [is] adverse,” the United States shall have the right to purchase the land for just compensation. §2409a(b). Similarly, the Act provides that any “civil action against the United States under this section shall be tried by the court without a jury” and bars suits based on adverse possession. §§§ [sic]2409a(f), (n). It also incorporates the time bar at issue here: “Any civil action under this section, except for an action brought by a State, shall be barred unless it is commenced within twelve years of the date upon which it accrued. Such action shall be deemed to have accrued on the date the plaintiff or his predecessor in interest knew or should have known of the claim of the United States.” §2409a(g).

These provisions carefully delineate the scope of the Act’s limited waiver of sovereign immunity, establishing conditions on which the United States has consented to be sued. The United States has not, for example, consented to a jury