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SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
_________________
No. 14–510
_________________
MENOMINEE INDIAN TRIBE OF WISCONSIN,
PETITIONER
v. UNITED STATES, et al.
on writ of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the district of columbia circuit
[January 25, 2016]
Justice Alito delivered the opinion of the
Court.
Petitioner Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin
(Tribe) seeks equitable tolling to preserve contract claims not
timely presented to a federal contracting officer. Because the
Tribe cannot establish extraordinary circumstances that stood in
the way of timely filing, we hold that equit-able tolling does not
apply.
I
Congress enacted the Indian Self-Determination
and Education Assistance Act (ISDA), Pub. L. 93–638, 88Stat.
2203, 25 U. S. C. §450
et seq., in 1975
to help Indian tribes assume responsibility for aid programs that
benefit their members. Under the ISDA, tribes may enter into
“self-determination contracts” with federal agencies to
take control of a variety of federally funded programs. §450f.
A contracting tribe is eligible to receive the amount of money that
the Government would have otherwise spent on the program, see
§450j–1(a)(1), as well as reimbursement for reasonable
“contract support costs,” which include administrative
and overhead costs associated with carrying out the contracted
programs, §§450j–1(a)(2), (3), (5).
In 1988, Congress amended the ISDA to apply the
Contract Disputes Act of 1978 (CDA), 41 U. S. C.
§7101
et seq., to disputes arising under the ISDA.
See 25 U. S. C. §450m–1(d); Indian
Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act Amendments of 1988,
§206(2), 102Stat. 2295. As part of its mandatory
administrative process for resolving contract disputes, the CDA
requires contractors to present “[e]ach claim” they may
have to a contracting officer for decision. 41 U. S. C.
§7103(a)(1). Congress later amended the CDA to include a
6-year statute of limitations for presentment of each claim.
Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act of 1994, 41 U. S. C.
§7103(a)(4)(A).
Under the CDA, the contracting officer’s
decision is generally final, unless challenged through one of the
statutorily authorized routes. §7103(g). A contractor
dissatisfied with the officer’s decision may either take an
administrative appeal to a board of contract appeals or file an
action for breach of contract in the United States Court of Federal
Claims. §§7104(a), (b)(1), 7105(b). Both routes then lead
to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit for
any further review. 28 U. S. C. §1295(a)(3); 41
U. S. C. §7107(a)(1); see 25 U. S. C.
§450m–1(d). Under the ISDA, tribal contractors have a
third option. They may file a claim for money damages in federal
district court, §§450m–1(a), (d), and if they lose,
they may pursue an appeal in one of the regional courts of appeals,
28 U. S. C. §1291.
Tribal contractors have repeatedly complained
that the Federal Government has not fully honored its obligations
to pay contract support costs. Three lawsuits making such claims
are relevant here.
The first was a class action filed by the Ramah
Navajo Chapter alleging that the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA)
systematically underpaid certain contract support costs.
Ramah
Navajo Chapter v.
Lujan, No. 1:90–cv–0957
(D NM) (filed Oct. 4, 1990). In 1993, Ramah successfully moved
for certification of a nationwide class of all tribes that had
contracted with the BIA under the ISDA. See Order and Memorandum
Opinion in
Ramah Navajo Chapter v.
Lujan, No.
1:90–cv–0957 (D NM, Oct. 1, 1993), App.
35–40. The Government argued that each tribe needed to
present its claims to a contracting officer before it could
participate in the class.
Id., at 37–38. But the trial
court held that tribal contractors could participate in the class
without presentment, because the suit alleged systemwide flaws in
the BIA’s contracting scheme, not merely breaches of
individual contracts.
Id., at 39. The Government did not
appeal the certification order, and the
Ramah class action
proceeded to further litigation and settlement.
The second relevant ISDA suit raised similar
claims about contract support costs but arose from contracts with
the Indian Health Service (IHS).
Cherokee Nation of Okla. v.
United States, No. 6:99–cv–0092 (ED Okla.)
(filed Mar. 5, 1999). In
Cherokee Nation, two tribes filed a
putative class action against IHS. On February 9, 2001, the
District Court denied class certification without addressing
whether tribes would need to present claims to join the class.
Cherokee Nation of Okla. v.
United States, 199
F. R. D. 357, 363–366 (ED Okla.). The two
plaintiff tribes did not appeal the denial of class certification
but proceeded to the merits on their own, eventually prevailing
before this Court in a parallel suit. See
Cherokee Nation of
Okla. v.
Leavitt, 543 U. S. 631 (2005) .
The third relevant case is the one now before
us. In this case, the Tribe presented its contract support claims
(for contract years 1995 through 2004) to IHS on September 7, 2005,
shortly after our
Cherokee Nation ruling. As relevant here,
the contracting officer denied the Tribe’s claims based on
its 1996, 1997, and 1998 contracts because,
inter alia,
those claims were barred by the CDA’s 6-year statute of
limitations.[
1] The Tribe
challenged the denials in the United States District Court for the
District of Columbia, arguing, based on theories of class-action
and equitable tolling, that the limitations period should be tolled
for the 707 days that the putative
Cherokee Nation class had
been pending. See
American Pipe & Constr. Co. v.
Utah, 414 U. S. 538 (1974) (class-action tolling);
Holland v.
Florida, 560 U. S. 631 (2010)
(equitable tolling).
Initially, the District Court held that the
limitations period was jurisdictional and thus forbade tolling of
any sort. 539 F. Supp. 2d 152, 154, and n. 2 (DDC 2008).
On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of
Columbia Circuit concluded that the limitations period was not
jurisdictional and thus did not necessarily bar tolling. 614
F. 3d 519, 526 (2010). But the court held that the Tribe was
ineligible for class-action tolling during the pendency of the
putative
Cherokee Nation class, because the Tribe’s
failure to present its claims to IHS made it “ineligible to
participate in the class action at the time class certification
[was] denied.” 614 F. 3d, at 527 (applying
American
Pipe). The court then remanded the case to the District Court
to determine the Tribe’s eligibility for equitable
tolling.
On remand, the District Court concluded that the
Tribe’s asserted reasons for failing to present its claims
within the specified time “do not, individually or
collec-tively, amount to an extraordinary circumstance” that
could warrant equitable tolling. 841 F. Supp. 2d 99, 107 (DC
2012) (internal quotation marks omitted). This time, the Court of
Appeals affirmed. 764 F. 3d 51 (CADC 2014). It explained that,
“[t]o count as sufficiently ‘extraordinary’ to
support equitable tolling, the circumstances that caused a
litigant’s delay must have been beyond its control,”
and “cannot be a product of that litigant’s own
misunderstanding of the law or tactical mistakes in
litigation.”
Id., at 58. Because none of the
Tribe’s proffered circumstances was beyond its control, the
court held, there were no extraordinary circumstances that could
merit equitable tolling.
The Court of Appeals’ decision created a
split with the Federal Circuit, which granted another tribal entity
equitable tolling under similar circumstances. See
Arctic Slope
Native Assn., Ltd. v.
Sebelius, 699 F. 3d 1289 (CA
Fed. 2012). We granted certiorari to resolve the conflict. 576
U. S. ___ (2015).
II
The Court of Appeals denied the Tribe’s
request for equitable tolling by applying the test that we
articulated in
Holland v.
Florida, 560 U. S. 631
. Under
Holland, a litigant is entitled to equitable tolling
of a statute of limitations only if the litigant establishes two
elements: “(1) that he has been pursuing his rights
diligently, and (2) that some extraordinary circumstance stood in
his way and prevented timely filing.”
Id., at 649
(internal quotation marks omitted).
The Tribe calls this formulation of the
equitable tolling test overly rigid, given the doctrine’s
equitable nature. First, it argues that diligence and extraordinary
circumstances should be considered together as two factors in a
unitary test, and it faults the Court of Appeals for declining to
consider the Tribe’s diligence in connection with its finding
that no extraordinary circumstances existed. But we have expressly
characterized equitable tolling’s two components as
“elements,” not merely factors of indeterminate or
commensurable weight.
Pace v.
DiGuglielmo, 544
U. S. 408, 418 (2005) (“Generally, a litigant seeking
equitable tolling bears the burden of establishing two
elements”). And we have treated the two requirements as
distinct elements in practice, too, rejecting requests for
equitable tolling where a litigant failed to satisfy one without
addressing whether he satisfied the other. See,
e.g.,
Lawrence v.
Florida, 549 U. S. 327 –337
(2007) (rejecting equitable tolling without addressing diligence
because habeas petitioner fell “far short of showing
‘extraordinary circumstances’ ”);
Pace,
supra, at 418 (holding, without resolving
litigant’s argument that he had “satisfied the
extraordinary circumstance test,” that, “[e]ven if we
were to accept [his argument], he would not be entitled to relief
because he has not established the requisite diligence”).
Second, the Tribe objects to the Court of
Appeals’ interpretation of the “extraordinary
circumstances” prong as requiring a litigant seeking tolling
to show an “external obstacl[e]” to timely filing,
i.e., that “the circumstances that caused a
litigant’s delay must have been beyond its control.”
764 F. 3d, at 58–59. The Tribe complains that this
“external obstacle” formulation amounts to the same
kind of “ ‘overly rigid
per se
approach’ ” we rejected in
Holland. Brief
for Petitioner 32 (quoting 560 U. S., at 653). But in truth,
the phrase “external obstacle” merely reflects our
requirement that a litigant seeking tolling show “that some
extraordinary circumstance
stood in his way.”
Id., at 649 (emphasis added; internal quotation marks
omitted). This phrasing in
Holland (and in
Pace
before that) would make little sense if equitable tolling were
available when a litigant was responsible for its
own delay.
Indeed, the diligence prong already covers those affairs within the
litigant’s control; the extraordinary-circumstances prong, by
contrast, is meant to cover matters outside its control. We
therefore reaffirm that the second prong of the equitable tolling
test is met only where the circumstances that caused a
litigant’s delay are both extraordinary
and beyond its
control.[
2]
III
The Tribe offers no circumstances that meet
this standard.
Its mistaken reliance on the putative
Cherokee Nation class action was not an obstacle beyond its
control.[
3] As the Tribe
conceded below, see 614 F. 3d, at 526–527, it could not
have been a member of the putative
Cherokee Nation class
because it did not present its claims to an IHS contracting officer
before class certification was denied. Before then, the Tribe had
unilateral authority to present its claims and to join the putative
class. Presentment was blocked not by an obstacle outside its
control, but by the Tribe’s mistaken belief that presentment
was unneeded.
The Tribe’s mistake, in essence, was its
inference that the reasoning of the
Ramah class
certification decision (allowing tribes to
participate—without presentment—in the class
challenging underpayment of BIA contract support costs) applied to
the putative
Cherokee Nation class. This mistake was
fundamentally no different from “a garden variety claim of
excusable neglect,”
Irwin v.
Department of Veterans
Affairs, 498 U. S. 89, 96 (1990) , “such as a simple
‘miscalculation’ that leads a lawyer to miss a filing
deadline,”
Holland,
supra, at 651 (quoting
Lawrence,
supra, at 336). And it is quite different
from relying on
actually binding precedent that is
subsequently reversed.[
4]
The Tribe’s other excuses are even less
compelling. Its belief that presentment was futile was not an
obstacle beyond its control but a species of the same mistake that
kept it out of the putative
Cherokee Nation class. And the
fact that there may have been significant risk and expense
associated with presenting and litigating its claims is far from
extraordinary. As the District Court noted below, “it is
common for a litigant to be confronted with significant costs to
litigation, limited financial resources, an uncertain outcome based
upon an uncertain legal landscape, and impending deadlines. These
circumstances are not ‘extraordinary.’ ” 841
F. Supp. 2d, at 107.
Finally, the Tribe also urges us to consider the
special relationship between the United States and Indian tribes,
as articulated in the ISDA. See 25 U. S. C. §450a(b)
(“Congress declares its commitment to the maintenance of the
Federal Government’s unique and continuing relationship with,
and responsibility to, individual Indian tribes and to the Indian
people as a whole”). We do not question the “general
trust relationship between the United States and the Indian
tribes,” but any specific obligations the Government may have
under that relationship are “governed by statute rather than
the common law.”
United States v.
Jicarilla Apache
Nation, 564 U. S. 162, 165 (2011) . The ISDA and CDA
establish a clear procedure for the resolution of disputes over
ISDA contracts, with an unambiguous 6-year deadline for presentment
of claims. The “general trust relationship” does not
override the clear language of those statutes.[
5]
IV
For these reasons, the judgment of the United
States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is
affirmed.
It is so ordered.
