Menominee Indian Tribe Of Wis. v. USA .

• Decision Date: 30 July 2010
• Docket Number: No. 09-5005.,09-5005.
• Citation: 614 F.3d 519
• Parties: MENOMINEE INDIAN TRIBE OF WISCONSIN, Appellant v. UNITED STATES of America, et al., Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

614 F.3d 519

MENOMINEE INDIAN TRIBE OF WISCONSIN, Appellant

v.UNITED STATES of America, et al., Appellees.

No. 09-5005.

United States Court of Appeals,District of Columbia Circuit.

Argued Nov. 17, 2009.

Decided July 30, 2010.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (No. 1:07-cv-00812-RMC).

Geoffrey D. Strommer argued the cause for appellant. With him on the briefs was Marsha K. Schmidt.

Donald J. Simon, Arthur Lazarus Jr., and Lloyd B. Miller were on the brief for amici curiae Arctic Slope Native Association, et al. in support of appellant.

Donald E. Kinner, Assistant Director, U.S. Department of Justice, argued the cause for appellee United States of America. With him on the brief was Jeanne E. Davidson, Director. R. Craig Lawrence, Assistant U.S. Attorney, entered an appearance.

Before: GINSBURG, TATEL and GRIFFITH, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge GRIFFITH.

GRIFFITH, Circuit Judge:

The district court dismissed the breach-of-contract claims of a government contractor, concluding they were barred by the statute of limitations in 41 U.S.C. § 605(a) and the equitable doctrine of laches. For the reasons set forth below, we reverse the judgment of the district court and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

I.

The Contract Disputes Act of 1978(CDA), 41 U.S.C. §§ 601 et seq. (2006), established a comprehensive framework for resolving contract disputes between executive branch agencies and government contractors. See id. § 602(a). In 1994, Congress amended the CDA to require, with one exception not relevant here, that all claims relating to a government contract be submitted, within six years of accrual, to the contracting officer responsible for entering and administering contracts on behalf of the relevant agency. See Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act of 1994, Pub.L. No. 103-355, § 2351(a), 108 Stat. 3243, 3322 (codified at 41 U.S.C. § 605(a)). ¹

Once the contracting officer issues a decision on a claim or is deemed to have denied the claim by failing to issue a timely decision, see 41 U.S.C. § 605(a), (c), a dissatisfied contractor has two options. The contractor may, within ninety days, appeal the decision to the board of contract appeals for the relevant agency. Id. § 606. Or the contractor may, within twelve months, file suit in the United States Court of Federal Claims. Id. § 609(a). Although these two paths are mutually exclusive, Tuttle/White Constructors, Inc. v. United States, 228 Ct.Cl. 354, 656 F.2d 644, 648-49 (1981), they converge at the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which hears appeals from both the agency boards and the claims court. 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(3), (a)(10); 41 U.S.C. § 607(g).

This appeal found its way to our court-and not our sister circuit-by an unconventional third route, made possible because the case involves a contract authorized by the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act (ISDEAA). See 25 U.S.C. §§ 450 et seq. The ISDEAA permits Indian tribes to assume responsibility for federally funded programs or services that a federal agency would otherwise provide to the tribes' members. See id. §§ 450b(j), 450f(a). After the tribe and agency memorialize the transfer of authority in a “self-determination contract,” they negotiate annual funding agreements, which become part of the contract. Id. § 450 l(c) (subsection (f)(2) of model agreement). Though self-determination contracts are governed by the CDA, id. § 450m-1(d), the ISDEAA allows a tribe to bring an action arising under its contract in the district court rather than the Court of Federal Claims. Id. § 450m-1(a). The tribe exercised that option in this case.

The parties to the contract at issue are the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin and the Indian Health Service (IHS), the agency tasked with administering federal health programs for American Indians. Pursuant to a contract with IHS, Menominee has for many years operated a healthcare program for its members. The tribe alleges that the IHS has failed to pay all the “contract support costs” (reasonable administrative expenses and the like) to which it was statutorily entitled for the 1995 to 2004 contract years. Id. § 450j-1(a)(2) (obligating agencies to reimburse tribes' contract support costs). Menominee submitted its claims to the IHS contracting officer on September 7, 2005. After the contracting officer denied the claims in their entirety, Menominee timely filed this action for breach of contract in the district court.

The government filed a motion to dismiss for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction and for failure to state a claim. The district court lacked jurisdiction over the claims for 1996, 1997, and 1998, the government contended, because Menominee had not filed those claims with the contracting officer until after the six-year limitations period in the CDA had expired. Because that deadline does not apply to “contracts awarded prior to October 1, 1995,” 48 C.F.R. § 33.206, the government argued that the tribe's claim for 1995 was barred by laches.

Menominee did not disagree that it filed its claims for 1996 to 1998 more than six years after their accrual, but argued that the limitations period should be tolled. The tribe's argument relied on the fact that in 1999 two other tribes filed a putative class action on behalf of all Indian tribes “that were not fully paid their contract support cost needs, as determined by IHS,” under a self-determination contract. Cherokee Nation of Okla. v. United States, 199 F.R.D. 357, 360 (E.D.Okla.2001) (quoting Notice of Filing Revised Proposed Notice of Class Action). The district court in that case eventually denied class certification. Id. at 366. Menominee contended that it fell within the class described in the Cherokee complaint and that, under the doctrine of class-action tolling, the limitations period was suspended for two years while asserted members of the Cherokee class awaited the certification decision. In the alternative, Menominee asserted that principles of equitable tolling similarly excused the lateness of its claims. If either tolling theory was correct, the tribe's claims for 1996 to 1998 would not be time-barred. Menominee also disputed that laches barred its claim for 1995.

The district court dismissed the claims for 1995 to 1998. See Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisc. v. United States, 539 F.Supp.2d 152 (D.D.C.2008). The court rejected Menominee's class-action tolling theory on the ground that “presentment to the contracting officer is a mandatory jurisdictional requirement and was not timely performed by the Tribe for its 1996-1998 claims.” Id. at 154 n. 2 (citation omitted). The court also declined to equitably toll the filing deadline, reasoning that “[s]tatutory time limits are jurisdictional in nature, and courts do not have the power to create equitable exceptions to them.” Id. at 154. With respect to the claim for 1995, the district court held that laches applied because the tribe's “11-year delay in bringing suit [was] nearly double the time allowed under the statute of limitations,” id., and caused the government economic prejudice, id. at 154-55.

After the district court dismissed the tribe's remaining claims, Menominee appealed the dismissal of its claims for 1995 to 1998. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291.

II.

We first consider the timeliness of Menominee's claims for 1996 to 1998, which are subject to the statute of limitations in 41 U.S.C. § 605(a). Menominee missed its deadline but argues that the limitations period should be tolled. The government argues that the limitations period is jurisdictional and therefore cannot be tolled, equitably or otherwise. We disagree that the limitations period is jurisdictional but agree with the government's alternative argument that class-action tolling is unavailable in this case. Nevertheless, we conclude that the limitations period in § 605(a) is subject to equitable tolling in appropriate cases and remand for the district court to consider whether it would be proper here. Our conclusions regarding the availability of class-action and equitable tolling under § 605(a) are the same as those reached by the Federal Circuit in Arctic Slope Native Ass'n v. Sebelius, 583 F.3d 785 (Fed.Cir.2009), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 130 S.Ct. 3505, --- L.Ed.2d ---- (2010), which issued after the parties filed their briefs in this appeal.

A. Jurisdiction

The district court treated the six-year deadline in § 605(a) as jurisdictional. Menominee, 539 F.Supp.2d at 154. This was error. Filing deadlines, statutory or not, are generally nonjurisdictional. See John R. Sand & Gravel Co. v. United States, 552 U.S. 130, 133, 128 S.Ct. 750, 169 L.Ed.2d 591 (2008); Day v. McDonough, 547 U.S. 198, 205, 126 S.Ct. 1675, 164 L.Ed.2d 376 (2006); Scarborough v. Principi, 541 U.S. 401, 413-14, 124 S.Ct. 1856, 158 L.Ed.2d 674 (2004); see also Carlisle v. United States, 517 U.S. 416, 434, 116 S.Ct. 1460, 134 L.Ed.2d 613 (1996) (Ginsburg, J., concurring) (“It is anomalous to classify time prescriptions, even rigid ones, under the heading ‘subject matter jurisdiction.’ ” (footnote omitted)). The time limit in § 605(a) is no exception.

“Subject matter jurisdiction defines the [tribunal's] authority to hear a given type of case.” Carlsbad Tech., Inc. v. HIF Bio, Inc., --- U.S. ----, 129 S.Ct. 1862, 1866, 173 L.Ed.2d 843 (2009). The Supreme Court has distinguished between prescriptions that may be “properly typed ‘jurisdictional,’ ” Scarborough, 541 U.S. at 414, 124 S.Ct. 1856, and those better classified as “claim-processing rules,” id. at 413, 124 S.Ct. 1856. A claim-processing rule may serve to inform a plaintiff of the time he has to file a claim, Kontrick v. Ryan, 540 U.S. 443, 456, 124 S.Ct. 906, 157 L.Ed.2d 867 (2004), or to “protect a defendant's case-specific interest in timeliness,” John R. Sand, 552 U.S. at 133, 128 S.Ct. 750, but it “does not...