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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.
