Legal Case Summary

We will hear an argument next in case 13339 CTS Corporation versus Waldberger. Mr. Murray? Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the Court. CTS should prevail here based on the text of Section 9658 as well as its structure, historical context, and other relevant considerations, all of which make clear that it is a federalism compromise having no effect on statutes of repost. Section 9658 should be construed narrowly to do the one thing that Congress intended it to do, which is to postpone in some situations a single state law statute of limitations commencement date. How many, how many states have, this is a general statute of reposing, nothing to do in particular with circle, is that right? That's right. How many states have such statutes? Well, it gets a little confusing. The study group report indicated there were four of those states. I believe respondents have pointed to four or five. There are also that have to do with personal injury. There are also myriad others that have to do with property damage, so it gets a little confusing to give a strict answer to that. But there were four statutes of repose squarely in the study group before Congress when they enacted this. Subcongress knew about these statutes of repose when they enacted this. But if you were to prevail, then the party's concern might well go to their state legislatures and say, an act of statute of repose. That will get us off the hook. Even before the injured person is aware of the injury and the deposit. The result of that would be to totally defeat what Congress meant to do in saying the trigger is when you know the course of the injury. There has not been a rash of moves to state legislatures since this law has been enacted, so we haven't seen that develop. But if I could respectfully disagree with the premise, I think Congress's purpose here was slightly narrower than saving all long-late and injury claims. I think what Congress was worried about was expedition and making sure that it didn't force people to come to court before under a statute of limitations before they would be expected to. And that set out, the statute itself accomplishes only one thing, Section A1, and I'm reading from page 1 of our opening brief to the Court. It does one thing only, which is if the applicable limitations period for one of these actions as specified in a state law, statute limitations, or under common law, provide a commencement date that's earlier than the federal commencement date, then it substitutes the more favorable commencement date. Commencement date in turn, if we turn to page 2, and this is reading now from B3, commencement date means the date specified in a statute of limitations as the beginning of the applicable limitations period, which again, B2, applicable limitations period is defined as the period specified in a statute of limitations during which one of these civil actions may be brought. So doing the algebra on the definitions, what Congress surgically wanted to do here was to change one thing only if you had a less favorable state commencement date, which is the beginning of which an action may be brought, which is a cruel. If you had one of these less favorable state commencement dates for statute of limitations, Congress wanted to move that, keeping in place. Sotomayor, why would it have wanted to do that and not also get rid of the statute of repos, and presumably the idea is you should have some chance to sue after you've discovered the injury and the cause of the injury. And if here the statute of repos is preventing that, why would Congress have wanted to modify a statute of limitations, but not get rid of the statute of repos? Kagan, I think Congress was trying to be very careful with what it was doing in this area because it knew it was operating in pretty much the heartland of state law and state prerogatives here. And so while it was willing to go as far as the one study group recommendation and change statutes of limitations, a procedural mechanism, it wasn't willing to go right into the heart of the elements of the cause of action and start changing those because it perceived potentially serious federalism problems with doing that. It would be akin to Congress passing a law that says rather than since these negligence is what's it issued here, rather than negligence, Congress passing a law saying the duty of care will be strict liability

. I think there are serious constitutional problems with that as we've set out. And so Congress was very careful to tread lightly here and preserve the prerogatives of the states to keep in place. What would be the constitutional problem if Congress had said all people claiming an injury under this statute can commence the action three years after discovery of the cause, to send them. To the extent that's a statute of limitations period is not a problem. But to the extent it were to affect a statute of repose, North Carolina law is very clear that statutes of repose are an element of the cause of action. In other words, unless you plead and prove this element of the North Carolina law cause of action, you're out of court. Had Congress gone so far as to remove an element, I think you're in dangerous constitutional territory. But what kind of a, as I don't follow that, a statute of repose is a time limitation. Is that right? It is. But a statute of repose is designed to accomplish something. It's going after very different objectives than Congress was after with statute of limitation. Statutes of limitations, of course, as this statute reflects are designed, they're about diligence. They're about making sure that people don't sleep on their rights. And so what Congress did here was it left in place, State law as it founded, including the limitations period, the time period itself. And all it did was make one slight modification for those who might not at thought to be able to be as diligent as others and moved that date to a more favorable federal commencement date. So, if that was a, suppose a state has most of these statutes of repose are piggyback on top of statutes of limitation, right? I mean, you know, you have to sue within 10 years after you find the injury, but in any case, a suit must be brought within 20 years after the act that's the basis of your suit, right? But let's assume you have a state which only has a statute of repose. It just says, any suit for this act of negligence must be brought within 10 years after the act occurred. Is that still a statute of repose? It seems to me that would meet your definition of the commencement time for suit would have to be when the act occurred and you have 10 years from then. A statute written in that sort of way which gives permission, which is exactly what Congress was focused on might well be a statute of limitation. It doesn't sound like a statute of repose because again, what Congress wanted to move was the beginning of the period of the act. It doesn't give permission. It just says, you know, you're liable for negligence in this area, but any suit must be brought within 10 years after the act occurred. To the extent that a statute was that and it had only a statute of repose, then we don't believe 96.58 would touch that at all. And that makes sense because what Congress was doing was taking State law as it found it. And there's no obligation for States to have these causes of action at all. States could repeal these causes of action and there would be no right to suit. States could change their statute's limitations to a day after a cruel and that would be fine too. All Congress did was move the date on which a statute of limitations begins to run

. The Minister Murphy didn't in just a Scalia's example, what in the text would prevent you from treating that, you know, the single statute which is written as a statute of repose? What in the text is preventing you from saying that the statute applies to it? Yes, Your Honor. B2 and B3 read together. We believe are the two pieces that it would be most relevant. What Congress has chosen to move is the commencement date when State law is less favorable than Federal. Commencement date is defined as beginning of the apple-cable limitations period. An apple-cable limitations period means a period in a statute of limitations when suit may be brought. Right. Soot under North Carolina law may not be brought just because it is a defendant has made an act of omission. Indeed, under North Carolina law, and suit may not be brought until an action of cruise that set out in the- But I think you're messing with the hypothetical now. I mean, assume that the statute of repose is all there is. Now, in fact, you're not going to get any suits because nobody is going to know that they're injured until that they know that they're injured. But why wouldn't that be the commencement date is the thing that triggers the statute of repose, the last act of remission? And the applicable limitations period is the 10 years. If we were in a state where you were permitted to sue, permission to sue was given based on the last act of remission of a defendant, then we would be in a different situation. But here, permission to sue does not arise until your cause of action of cruise. There's a distinction between the last act and a mission of a defendant, which is what starts the running of the statutes of repose on the one hand and the accrual of a cause of action. Yes, but my hypothetical was different. There is no such distinction. There is no statute of limitations. It's only what you call a statute of repose. And I think you have to say that in that situation, it is no longer a statute of repose that it's a statute of limitations. Again, so long as we're reading 96.58 to apply two and only two, it can apply when and only when there is a less favorable state law commencement date. If the state law, as you're positing it, it might well be a statute of limitations. If the state law, as you're positing it, allows someone to bring a cause of action, that starts to sound like a cause of a statute of limitations. Here, the statute of repose is in no way tied to anything having to do with the plaintiff. It is an end date, which begins with the defendant's last act of remission and ends 10 years later, and is the end of the cause of action. None of that is the beginning of an applicable limitations period, the beginning of when someone may bring a suit. When suit has accrued, in other words, under North Carolina law, as we think, 96.58

. What was his statute enacted? What was it? 1986. It was not part of the statute. It was not part of the statute. I never heard of this distinction between statutes of repose and statutes of limitations. Well, and there, but to be clear, Congress hasn't always been perfectly clear, and certainly some of this Court's decision says with jurisdiction and standing have made some loose use of the language. But Congress certainly has written into various laws, some of which have been presented in the Amicus briefs here, back-end, hard-end dates after which causes of action may not be brought and all kinds of. Well, yes, but have they ever, have they ever drawn a distinction between statutes of limitations and statutes of repose? Is there any Federal statute that makes that distinction? Or is there any Federal statute which applies only to statutes of repose? There's no Federal statute that makes the distinction between limitations and repose. But there are, as we have had been set out here, many Federal statutes that give this hard-end, back-end protection to defendants and for important reasons, right? Remember that these statutes exist. Oh, yeah, it exists. I mean, these statutes exist, but are they called statutes of repose? Or are they, or are they not considered as I used to consider them when I was in law school, and even as late as 1986? I would have considered that as statute of limitations now. You think Congress is smarter. They know the law better. We think Congress understood the distinction, and this is a harder question to answer, but for those who find resort to legislative history helpful here, remember what Congress did in 1980 they passed CERCLA, and then they commissioned, which was not about towards at all. CERCLA is a broad cleanup statute focused on, you know, without fault, without liability, cleaning up land. It then commissioned a study group of leading folks to get together and figure out whether there should be a tort cause of action, whether there should be other changes made to the law, what else should be done in the tort arena. And that study group report was very clear on the distinction between statutes of repose on the one hand and statutes of limitations on the other. That's what I'm talking about. But in general, Mr. Murphy, I think Justice Scalia is right that in general Congress hasn't made this distinction. In general, this court has not made this distinction. In general, I think this goes back to Justice Ginsburg's point, the purpose behind the slug clearly it doesn't matter either. I mean, either way, if Congress wanted to make sure that people could sue after discovering their injury, a statute of repose, prevents that as well as a statute of limitations does. And yet you're asking us to imagine a Congress that has this very much in its head, both the difference between these two things. And you said the reason that they wanted only to alter the one and not to alter the other is because they thought of the statute of repose as impugnion on a state's constitutional prerogatives. Now, that's a very legally sophisticated Congress here asking us to imagine. You know, to understand this distinction and then to say, oh, yes, look, the statute of repose is really an interference with substantive liability in a way that the statute of limitations is not, and that might raise constitutional avoidance issues. I mean, I think that's pretty sophisticated stuff. Two points, Your Honor. One, actually Congress, at least at this time, was very sophisticated, and we've set out, again, for those who find legislative history to be helpful, we've set out several exchanges right on the floor between members of Congress, where one would ask, what is the difference between a statute of limitations and repose? And I would ask, thank you for asking and explain it really quite succinctly

. So, at least at that time. Everybody was listening to that, though. The chamber was full. And it was my first point. But my second point is we don't have to rest on the broad construction of statute limitations versus statute of repose, sort of the broad definitional purpose. I come back to the text and the structure of the statute here, which, again, only does one thing, moving a commencement date defined as the beginning of the period in which one of these actions may be brought. That simply does not define a statute of repose. I thought that what Congress was trying to do was to establish a federally required commencement date, a federal requirement, a federal requirement, commencement date. So, when you ask the question, how much time do I have to sue for one of these circular injuries? And so it would be three years after you know the cause of your injury. Now, on your to pay out this statute of repose, it can no longer be uniformed to that question. That's absolutely right. All Congress was, there is no uniformed answer to that question because a statute of repose does not meet the definition Congress set out in the statute as the beginning of the period in which an action may be brought. That is a cruel, and that speaks to statute of limitations. The beginning of which an action may be brought has nothing to do necessarily with the last act or a mission of a defendant, which is a statute of repose. And again, it's a perfectly logical distinction for Congress to make, given what they were trying to do, the statute itself makes clear that state law otherwise controls, they didn't touch any other part of state law. All they did was this narrow surgical strike at the beginning of statute's limitations. If I may reserve the rest of my time for a bottle. Thank you, Mr. Murray. Mr. Palmore. Thank you, Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the Court. Section 9658 surgically modifies state law tort actions in one limited respect, and otherwise leaves them untouched by changing the commencement date for the time period in which a civil action may be brought. The relevant time is the Palmore, if it's always, if it's not, if it's not, then all of the states and that is ten-year statute of repose. And then that has totally undermined what Congress said about to do in 9650 FDA. I respectfully disagree, Justice Ginsburg, because Congress had before it a report that identified the principal problem in this area as when statutes of limitations periods commenced. And it identified the problem as those minority of states that commenced this running of statute of limitations period at a time of injury as opposed to discovery of injury and its cause. It's critical to understand here that there were only four states, as Council said, at the time that Congress enacted this statute that had statutes of repose, and those were states that all had discovery rules

. There's no inconsistency between a statute of repose and a statute of limitations with a discovery rule. They typically go together and they represent a compromise and a balancing of interest on the part of the states that makes enact, enacted, a, in a sense, a pro-plaintiff reform to adopt a discovery rule, but provided for defendants the certainty of a substantive cutoff at an outer range of students going out. But the point is, the question I asked is suppose all of the states have this ten-year statutes of repose? Then there would be no occasion to invoke 96, 58, and the plaintiff would be out of court before the action occurred in some cases. Well, Justice Ginsburg, I guess if you hypothesized a state that had, didn't have a discovery rule, and for some reason had additionally had a statute of repose, I'm not sure why the state would do that, the Federal statute would still work in that setting. But that wasn't the record before Congress. As I said before, there were only four states who had statutes of repose. There's no indication in the text or the legislative history that that was a focus of Congress's attention. Are you acknowledging that if a state had only a so-called statute of repose that the Federal limitation would apply to that? It's only a statute of repose piggybacked on what we've been calling a statute of limitations. It's only that one that survives. I think, Justice Scalia, I think you have to look at the text and structure of the state law and see what is the commencement date of the time period. I think you can answer the question. Yes, yes or no? I mean. They had only, so if North Carolina didn't have a three-year statute of limitations and only had this ten-year statute of repose, I think our position would be the same that Section 96, 58 would not apply. I'm not aware of any state that has such a statute that was no state mentioned in the statute. It's why you ought to give it away. That so I think the critical factor, as Mr. Murray said, was the definitions, the nested definitions in the statute of the beginning of the applicable limitations period. And the applicable limitations period is the period specified during which a civil action may be brought. When can you first go into court with a complete cause of action and file a complaint? You have a statute to say there is a cause of action for X, okay? And a separate statute. There exists a cause of action for X. And a separate statute which says any suit for X cannot be brought after ten years from the act of the defendant that is the basis for the claim. Okay? Why isn't that the commencement date on which you can bring suit where the act occurs? I think it depends on whether under state law you have a complete cause of action and could go into court, file a complaint, and get relief. And I don't think we have to ask any abstract because if you look at page 3A of the government's brief, the appendix to the government's brief, you see what North Carolina law answers this question. It says civil actions can only be commenced. It actually uses the same word. Within the periods prescribed in this chapter, after the cause of action has accrued. So in North Carolina, as is typical of every state that I'm familiar with, the statute of limitations period begins to run when you have an accrued cause of action. Now, North Carolina had actually adopted a discovery rule. So Section 9658 doesn't have any purchase in this case because the commencement date of the statute of limitations period is the same

. But I think there are serious problems. I think what I, at least what I take from Justice Scalia's question is that if you think of the, if you imagine, and you're quite right that this doesn't exist in the real world, but if you imagine a statute of repose existing independently, it actually would fit the language of this statute quite fine. The commencement date would be different. It would not be the date of a cruel. It would be the date of the defendant's last act. But still, the statute would work perfectly well. And I suppose if you think that, then in a case in which there was both, the question would be why wouldn't you just apply this statute to both? Well, I'd like to go to that question because I think that goes to the rather strange reading of the statute that Respondents advance. So Respondents suggest that when A1 talks about a comparison between a Federal commencement date and the applicable limitations period under State law, Congress would have contemplated that there would be a comparison to multiple limitations periods under State law. Furthermore, it assumes that the solution that Congress would have arrived at to an issue with statutes of repose was to have a statute of repose periods start with a discovery rule, which would be a creature unknown to the law. And third, they assumed that what Congress did here was contemplate that in a state like North Carolina that had two different time limitation periods of two different lengths that Congress's solution was to require a common starting point for both rendering the longer limitations period, strangely superfluous. If Congress would have gone about this in a much more straightforward way, if it had wanted to accept the study group's suggestion that it repeal, or the suggestion was actually directed to the states, that the states repeal statutes of repose, Congress would have done so explicitly. It wouldn't have done so by awkwardly layering a discovery rule on top of statutes of repose. And Justice Scalia, this distinction between statutes of limitations and statutes of repose, we agreed it's not the label that controls. We think Congress here showed, by the way, the definitions in the way this provision works, what it had in mind when it talked about statutes of limitations. But the sub-tab difference between the two is something that both this Court's cases and the law generally recognize that the North Carolina cases that we cite in our brief and the petitioner cite black and redrow in particular are quite clear in the distinguishing between the two. This Court in Lamp, when talking about the one-year, three-year limitations period under the securities laws, distinguished between the two and said there would be no equitable tolling applied to the period of repose, the three-year limit in the securities laws that didn't turn on the label, that turned on the substance of how these things work. It didn't turn on the label in part because I was looking at the opinion it talks about statutes of limitations. So it's not that helps the other side, although the repose period helps you. It's right. Justice Kennedy, it's not a question of labels. It's a question of the definitions in this statute and how this statute actually works. We agree the labels aren't dispositive. And as we discussed in our brief, Justice Scalia, conflict of laws is another area in which the courts consistently draw a distinction between statutes of limitations, which they classify as procedural, and thus the forum state can apply its own statute of limitations law, and statutes of repose, which the court. There's the restatement for statute of repose, as they go back to what at least I learned in law school. There's the statute of limitations, and then there's a so-called built-in statute of limitations. Statute of limitations, general, covered all claims, but a built-in statute of limitations was considered to limit, not simply the remedy, but the right. That is the distinction that the North Carolina cases draw. Sometimes it can be specific to a statutory cause of action. Sometimes it can be generally applicable

. The policy consideration behind a statute of reposes is related, but distinct from a statute of limitations, which is about incentivizing the plaintiff to get into court quickly. The statute of repose is intended to provide certainty at the back end to a defendant so it can order its affairs, have insurance policies that make sense, and that statute of repose as an element of substantive state law will go with that defendant if it sued in any other state where there might be venue or personal jurisdiction. As a substantive matter of North Carolina law, that statute of repose will follow. So this is a distinction that the law has generally recognized, and it wouldn't be at all surprising that in the context of a Federalism Compromise, which to what 9658 really was, that Congress would have chosen to mirror that same distinction. It would have decided to go after the principal problem that was before it, which was an issue of discovery rules, the absence of discovery rules in certain states, without more deeply intruding into the substance of state law. These are state law tort actions that are quintessentially within the responsibility and the sovereignty of the states. Kagan-Mr. Baumel, what do you think the commencement date in this case was? Kagan-The commencement date in this case, I think, was probably in 2009 when, under both North Carolina law and the Federal Commencement date, when these respondents were learned from the EPA that their well water was contaminated. Because at that time, they both discovered their injury and they understood the cause. So- Kagan-But how could that be the beginning of the period's door in which his suit may be brought? I mean, he couldn't bring suit on that date. Kagan-Well, we think the best way to do that. Kagan-See, it seems something sort of internally contradictory in your interpretation here. Kagan-I guess. Kagan-We think there are two ways of looking at it in either way that the petitioner is correct. One is you look at just the statute of limitations period, which is the applicable limitations period for purposes of the statute. So that 2009 would be the commencement date there, even if there might be a separate barrier to relief. But second, even if you say there is no commencement date under State law, then under A1, there is no commencement date under State law, A4 should RRI that had, that was earlier than the Federal Commencement date. So you end up at the same place. Kagan-Thank you, Council. Mr. Corzon. Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the Court. I'd like to start with the plain wording of 96.58, but first just say a sentence or two about the purpose. The purpose of Section 96.58 is to preserve claims for latent harm from environmental releases, from the facility of hazardous waste, until the person discovers the cause of that latent harm. And latent harm, which is all over the legislative history, but with neither of my friends for the petitioners mentioned, latent harm is what the statute was preserved a past for, and latent harm includes things such as the groundwater contamination in this case, or cancers such as in the Campos Unicase. Well, and the whole purpose of the statute of repose is very different

. That's to give you a drop, you know, completely finished date, so whatever was latent or not latent, it's over with. It's a different purpose than a statute of limitations. Yes, Your Honor, but Congress was concerned about preserving claims, and it was to have one purpose here. I agree it had one purpose, but the one purpose of 96.58 was to give a uniform trigger date for everybody to have the time to bring a claim, start to run only after they discovered their harm. And that is cut off by a statute of repose, yet it would be by repose period, just as it would be by any other limitation. Well, I think there's merit to your argument, but the point is, is there is no cause of action if there's a repose period and the suit is commenced later. And the study commission did recognize this distinction between as limitations and repose. I agree with Justice Glee. I didn't have Justice Ginsburg law professor, but this was new for me. Your Honor, it was new. If I could circle back to the study group in just a minute, in fact, other than it was mentioned in lamps, but in a confusing way. Agreed, and I also like to circle back to lamps. But first, Petitioner's own brief on page 32 says that this was a newly emerging technological distinction, a newly emerging terminological distinction as in 1986. And to return back to one of Justice Kagan's questions, it expects an awful lot for Congress to have been aware of that and made this distinction that it's not even made to this day. And to be clear. It was aware of it because the study group used the two terms, and they knew there were two different statutes because they were told. Now, how you make assumptions, I'm assuming that if there's a report as there was with this, that people would be responding to it in the legislation that's being drafted. Yes, Your Honor. Yes, Justice Sotomayor. Let me talk about that distinction for just a minute. The study group report, and it's a very impressive work, about 700 pages long, one time. One time does it use the term statutes of repose. And in that one use, it's within the heading of statute of limitations. And what the study group said is that in a handful of states, statutes of repose have the same effect of statutes of limitations without a discovery rule as barring people's claims before they know they've been harmed. And it said nothing about one is substantive, one is procedural. It just said they have the same effect. And therefore, and therefore, should be repealed, not and therefore should be covered by the Federal statute. Both recommendations, Justice Scalia, both recommendations, and this is crucial, both recommendations in the study group report were directed at the states

. It said states should adopt discovery rules, and states should repeal statutes of repose. Congress didn't wait on either of those. Congress anyway, as the government argued, it doesn't matter. It's not a matter of terminology. It's a matter of reality. It's a matter that these two things, whether they were given different names in 1986 or not, are quite different things. And do you deny that they are quite different things? And that therefore, the statute may apply to them quite differently? I do, Your Honor, and I do deny that they are quite different. They have, at core, the same basic similarity of defining a period when an action may be brought. And that's the language used in the secondary authorities of the day and used by Congress. They both define periods when an action may be brought. Now, there are some distinctions that, again, have emerged more clearly in some lower courts since 1986, but they have at that bottom, even to this day, the fact that they are both periods when an action may be brought. Why would these four states have two of them then? I remember they are doing the same thing. Why have two different ones? The states that have those, Your Honor, don't even classify them as statutes of repose. In fact, the North Carolina one here, and you can see it on page three of the red brief. It's not in the blue brief. But the North Carolina statute, what we're talking about is one sentence out of paragraph 16 in a statute of limitations. But it's an important difference because in the states that have repose statutes, there can be no tolling. I mean, that's huge, a minor, an incompetent person can't sue. That is a difference, Your Honor, but it's not a difference that was significant to Congress. Congress was trying to preserve claims for people of latent harm. I'm saying that repose statutes, when they exist, impose substantial hardships on people that the state otherwise protects minors and incompetence. They're out of luck. Well, in 9658, there's in fact provisions for minors and incompetence. And so, statutes and limitations typically have those, but yet they are included in the whole point. Statutes every post do not. Which suggests 9658 had statutes of repose in mind. There'd be no need to protect minors for a statute of limitations where there is equitable tolling. But putting aside tolling, I think we all concede that what we're talking about here is a statute of limitation. We're not saying it's also a statute of, everyone concede that there is a statute of limitations here

. The federal law is a statute of limitation. And so it protects minors. Well, this other statute of repose supersedes it. You can't quote us to the minors part of the statute and say that it isn't because that doesn't address the point. You still have the general equitable point where the position of the petitioner might frustrate Congress's intent. Well, putting aside minors, Your Honor, the plain language here applies to any type of period, whether you call it a limitations period or repose period. The plain language applies to you. Is your understanding of the operation of the statute is the applicable limitations period? Do you see the statute as applying Sirriottam first to the statute of limitations and then to the statute of repose? Or is the applicable limitations period the period that you can sue when you combine those two? In most states, you just have one period. So in this case, here we have a hybrid statute of limitations. That's what it's been called. It's also been called a bifurcated statute of limitations. It's also been called a two tiered statute of limitations. Yes, I just want to know, how do you apply this statute to what we have here? Is there a single applicable limitations period which represents the period when given both clauses you can sue or are you saying that there are two applicable limitations periods? In this statute, too, and in the small number of other states, there are two periods, both a three-year period and a ten-year period. Then you stumble into the difficulty that the petitioner pointed out, or maybe it was the government pointed out, a one does not refer to two statutes of limitations. It says, if the applicable limitations period for such action as specified in these state statute of limitations provides a commencement date, which is earlier. Now, you know, if they were really covering two different and vision that in some states you had two statutes of limitations, it seems to me they should have phrased it differently if the applicable limitations period or periods for such action as specified in the state statutes of limitations provides a commencement date or commencement dates, something like that. Is all in the singular? Yes, Justice Scalia, let me address this singular point. What we have here, again, is a hybrid statutes with two periods, which were rare then and rare now, but in that rare situation, the applicable limitations period is the one that a defendant is asking a court to apply to dismiss a case with prejudice. And in this case, that's the ten-year period. That's the applicable limitations period. Now, the petitioner, on the other hand, and the government, they both say there's no period in this case. No, there's no period in this case where a case may have been brought. So in other words, under their reading, there is no applicable period. But the statute here can easily read to have two. I don't know why you're even carrying. Isn't the applicable limitations period as far as you're concerned, the period in which you can bring a sit? And that would be the shorter one under all circumstances. And aren't you saying that statute of repose are preempted because you couldn't bring a suit? Yes, Your Honor. And that shows, that gets to the contradiction that was brought up during the petitioner's argument. The petitioner argues that Congress only addressed one part of the study groups' recommendations the discovery rule, but not repose periods. But on the other hand, they argue under our reading, a repose period would never apply. And that shows that the study groups' recommendations were carried out. You know, the statute does not refer to your cause of action. So it's hard to say that the period refers to, it refers to, is the period that you're trying to get around. It says, if the limitations period for such action, that is, any action brought under, any action brought under State law, I think to read that as applying to whatever limitations period is asserted against a particular plaintiff, I find it hard to read it that way. It seems to me that they're referring to a limitations period for the action that exists under State law, regardless of what is alleged in the particular complaint. Anyway, I think you got a real problem with the singular versus plural phrasing of number points. Well, to say one more thing about singular versus plural, we have a cited addiction area act, one U.S.A. one, U.S.A. one, which says that the singular ordinarily is read as the plural. Now, I know there's been a couple of decisions saying that's a rarely applied rule. But I mean, I take it, Mr. Kursen, that your argument is a little bit different. I mean, it seems Justice Scalia would have a point if it just said, if the limitations period, your argument is that you put in the word applicable, and it actually makes the statute read a little bit differently. It suggests that there are plural limitations period, and the one that this provision applies to is whichever one happens to be applicable as you apply the provision. I think that's exactly right, Justice Scalia. Except they're both applicable to this cause of action. Both of those periods are applicable. You run a foul of one of them, but not of the other one. It doesn't mean they are not both applicable. Yeah, anyway. This is certainly. It is angels on the head of a pin, isn't it? If I could speak a little bit about commencement date, commencement date is defined as the beginning of the period when an action may be brought. And the petitioner and the government argue that there never was a period when an action may be brought here. And in fact, however, on page 18, we've cited numerous authorities that define a repose period as exactly that when an action may be brought

. But on the other hand, they argue under our reading, a repose period would never apply. And that shows that the study groups' recommendations were carried out. You know, the statute does not refer to your cause of action. So it's hard to say that the period refers to, it refers to, is the period that you're trying to get around. It says, if the limitations period for such action, that is, any action brought under, any action brought under State law, I think to read that as applying to whatever limitations period is asserted against a particular plaintiff, I find it hard to read it that way. It seems to me that they're referring to a limitations period for the action that exists under State law, regardless of what is alleged in the particular complaint. Anyway, I think you got a real problem with the singular versus plural phrasing of number points. Well, to say one more thing about singular versus plural, we have a cited addiction area act, one U.S.A. one, U.S.A. one, which says that the singular ordinarily is read as the plural. Now, I know there's been a couple of decisions saying that's a rarely applied rule. But I mean, I take it, Mr. Kursen, that your argument is a little bit different. I mean, it seems Justice Scalia would have a point if it just said, if the limitations period, your argument is that you put in the word applicable, and it actually makes the statute read a little bit differently. It suggests that there are plural limitations period, and the one that this provision applies to is whichever one happens to be applicable as you apply the provision. I think that's exactly right, Justice Scalia. Except they're both applicable to this cause of action. Both of those periods are applicable. You run a foul of one of them, but not of the other one. It doesn't mean they are not both applicable. Yeah, anyway. This is certainly. It is angels on the head of a pin, isn't it? If I could speak a little bit about commencement date, commencement date is defined as the beginning of the period when an action may be brought. And the petitioner and the government argue that there never was a period when an action may be brought here. And in fact, however, on page 18, we've cited numerous authorities that define a repose period as exactly that when an action may be brought. That's a definition of for a repose period. What does it take this, the fact of this case, ten years' statute of repose? There was never a time when these plaintiffs write, this plaintiffs had an action it could be brought. Because the ten year limitation ended their right to seek before they had a claim. Yes, Your Honor. Except that that's not how the terms are defined. And we've cited cases on page 18 in North Carolina cases, in fact, and also the corpus juror's section that Petitioner relied on, defining a statute of repose exactly as that as a period when an action may be brought. Now, in their reply brief, Petitioner says, faced with those authorities, Petitioner says, well, no, no. A repose period is actually a period after which an action may not be brought. But that's really just two ways of saying the same thing. When an action may be brought or a period after which an action may not be brought. It depends whether they have a discovery rule or not, whether it's a period when an action may be brought or whether it's a period after which an action may not be brought. And the whole purpose of this was to require a discovery rule. And once you require a discovery rule, the statute of repose has completely independent meaning. Complete serves a completely independent office. The purpose, however, of Mr. Chief Justice was to preserve claims for latent harm, no matter what the period was that began. The purpose was to have a uniform trigger date that started the time to bring an action once you had discovered your harm. And if you use the defined terms here, then it applies to any type of period. Whether you call it a limitation period or a repose period, no matter what you call it. Well, the purpose of the statute of repose is not to preserve latent causes of action. It's quite the opposite. It's to put an end to, in particular, latent causes of action that haven't been brought. Yes, Your Honor, but Congress's purpose was to preserve claims no matter what the period was. Congress was concerned about people not having their day in court. And this is in the House Conference Report. It's all over the study group report. People not having their day in court because a period ran before they began to ran before they discovered their harm. And that applies to a repose period. Congress's doing away with, I don't know if any such date exists

. That's a definition of for a repose period. What does it take this, the fact of this case, ten years' statute of repose? There was never a time when these plaintiffs write, this plaintiffs had an action it could be brought. Because the ten year limitation ended their right to seek before they had a claim. Yes, Your Honor. Except that that's not how the terms are defined. And we've cited cases on page 18 in North Carolina cases, in fact, and also the corpus juror's section that Petitioner relied on, defining a statute of repose exactly as that as a period when an action may be brought. Now, in their reply brief, Petitioner says, faced with those authorities, Petitioner says, well, no, no. A repose period is actually a period after which an action may not be brought. But that's really just two ways of saying the same thing. When an action may be brought or a period after which an action may not be brought. It depends whether they have a discovery rule or not, whether it's a period when an action may be brought or whether it's a period after which an action may not be brought. And the whole purpose of this was to require a discovery rule. And once you require a discovery rule, the statute of repose has completely independent meaning. Complete serves a completely independent office. The purpose, however, of Mr. Chief Justice was to preserve claims for latent harm, no matter what the period was that began. The purpose was to have a uniform trigger date that started the time to bring an action once you had discovered your harm. And if you use the defined terms here, then it applies to any type of period. Whether you call it a limitation period or a repose period, no matter what you call it. Well, the purpose of the statute of repose is not to preserve latent causes of action. It's quite the opposite. It's to put an end to, in particular, latent causes of action that haven't been brought. Yes, Your Honor, but Congress's purpose was to preserve claims no matter what the period was. Congress was concerned about people not having their day in court. And this is in the House Conference Report. It's all over the study group report. People not having their day in court because a period ran before they began to ran before they discovered their harm. And that applies to a repose period. Congress's doing away with, I don't know if any such date exists. But as soon the State said, now, we're tired of environmental claims, you can't have them. We're not going to have one at all. Was Congress preempting that decision? Not here in 96.58, Your Honor. No, no. Congress was preempting the commencing. So why isn't the repose like that? Well, why isn't a statute of repose simply a decision that you just can't have a claim at all? Well, if it's older than 20 years old? Well, going back to the plain wording, Your Honor, it has a commencement date. It has a beginning. It begins from the Defense Last Act. It does have a beginning. And it's not a commencement date in the term, commencement means commencement of a lawsuit. The true, the true, the clear for the statute of repose here is not a commencement of a lawsuit date. It is the commencement of the running of the limitation period, but it isn't the time when you can commence a lawsuit. It is the beginning of the period of a time when an action may be brought, which is exactly how Congress defined the term. It does have a commencement date because it does have a beginning and it does define a period when an action. But you couldn't commence a action. So the last, the different commits the last act and then plenty of sues the next day. Well, plenty of cancer the next day, just the plan that doesn't know that she's been injured. Correct, Your Honor. But that's not how Congress defined the terms. Congress gave specific. The Big Dub on State Statutes. And as I understand it, the very purpose of the statute of repose or the built-in statute of limitations is to check the discovery rule, to say, we really want the discovery rule to operate after a certain amount of time. So that amount of time is passed. So the notion of what has been called the statute of repose and the discovery rule, the very purpose of the report is statute is to say, no discovery rule. That is correct, Your Honor. And that was not Congress's purpose. Congress wasn't in this specific area of hazardous waste released into the environment. Congress's purpose wasn't figuring out the difference between these different statutes and whether the State wanted to bar claims or not

. But as soon the State said, now, we're tired of environmental claims, you can't have them. We're not going to have one at all. Was Congress preempting that decision? Not here in 96.58, Your Honor. No, no. Congress was preempting the commencing. So why isn't the repose like that? Well, why isn't a statute of repose simply a decision that you just can't have a claim at all? Well, if it's older than 20 years old? Well, going back to the plain wording, Your Honor, it has a commencement date. It has a beginning. It begins from the Defense Last Act. It does have a beginning. And it's not a commencement date in the term, commencement means commencement of a lawsuit. The true, the true, the clear for the statute of repose here is not a commencement of a lawsuit date. It is the commencement of the running of the limitation period, but it isn't the time when you can commence a lawsuit. It is the beginning of the period of a time when an action may be brought, which is exactly how Congress defined the term. It does have a commencement date because it does have a beginning and it does define a period when an action. But you couldn't commence a action. So the last, the different commits the last act and then plenty of sues the next day. Well, plenty of cancer the next day, just the plan that doesn't know that she's been injured. Correct, Your Honor. But that's not how Congress defined the terms. Congress gave specific. The Big Dub on State Statutes. And as I understand it, the very purpose of the statute of repose or the built-in statute of limitations is to check the discovery rule, to say, we really want the discovery rule to operate after a certain amount of time. So that amount of time is passed. So the notion of what has been called the statute of repose and the discovery rule, the very purpose of the report is statute is to say, no discovery rule. That is correct, Your Honor. And that was not Congress's purpose. Congress wasn't in this specific area of hazardous waste released into the environment. Congress's purpose wasn't figuring out the difference between these different statutes and whether the State wanted to bar claims or not. Congress was trying to preserve claims and use defined terms that do preserve claims. No matter what you call the type of period, Congress is trying to preserve claims for long latency illness. That's very apparent. And my friends, the petitioner in the government, you'll notice in their brief, they may be mentioned latency once, today at all argument, neither mentioned latency. That's what Congress was concerned about. It's all over the study report. It's in the House Conference Report more times than they brought up here. Latency and long latency illness is exactly what Congress was concerned about. And repose periods affect that more than any other type of limitations period. So if I could talk a little bit about the purpose of the act, the evolution of this statute is very important here. It dates back to 9651, which was enacted in 1980 when Circlid Self was enacted. 9651 set up the study group to study barriers to recovery, to in cases involving harm to man and the environment, barriers to recovery. And the study group was a very distinguished group with attorneys, generals, and others from the legal community. And the study group determined that a main barrier to recovery were limitations periods that ran before people discovered their harm. And unanimously recommended that States act to enact discovery rules but also abolish repose periods. And then the House Conference Report states that's what was addressed, the problem of long latency illnesses. Kagan, you said it awfully strange way to abolish a repose period, right? I mean, one way to abolish a repose period is just to abolish a repose period. Another way is to say what Congress seems to have said here, which is move the first state of the period of repose up to a new federal commencement date so that the period of repose wholly is wholly redundant as to the limitations period. Now, that's a kind of strange way to do a pretty simple thing, isn't it? I disagree, Justice Kagan. It's a very short statute. And what you've just said, as the Amicus-Greet, as the Amicus-Greet for Jerome Enzminger and others pointed out, it's a very simple and effective way of accomplishing this. It's a short statute, statute, and then as you say, it does away with repose periods that have already run. So it's actually a fairly compact and effective way of doing that. Yet also, it's also respectful of for straight states' rights in a couple of ways. Rather than creating a new cause of action, it allows the content of state law to continue. It's just the starting point that was affected, respectful of states' rights in that way. And also very few states even have one of these repose periods. So it was a very simple and effective way to do it, not a, you know, perhaps it could have been done differently. And we could always say Congress could be more clear, but it's actually a very simple and clear and effective way to doing that

. Congress was trying to preserve claims and use defined terms that do preserve claims. No matter what you call the type of period, Congress is trying to preserve claims for long latency illness. That's very apparent. And my friends, the petitioner in the government, you'll notice in their brief, they may be mentioned latency once, today at all argument, neither mentioned latency. That's what Congress was concerned about. It's all over the study report. It's in the House Conference Report more times than they brought up here. Latency and long latency illness is exactly what Congress was concerned about. And repose periods affect that more than any other type of limitations period. So if I could talk a little bit about the purpose of the act, the evolution of this statute is very important here. It dates back to 9651, which was enacted in 1980 when Circlid Self was enacted. 9651 set up the study group to study barriers to recovery, to in cases involving harm to man and the environment, barriers to recovery. And the study group was a very distinguished group with attorneys, generals, and others from the legal community. And the study group determined that a main barrier to recovery were limitations periods that ran before people discovered their harm. And unanimously recommended that States act to enact discovery rules but also abolish repose periods. And then the House Conference Report states that's what was addressed, the problem of long latency illnesses. Kagan, you said it awfully strange way to abolish a repose period, right? I mean, one way to abolish a repose period is just to abolish a repose period. Another way is to say what Congress seems to have said here, which is move the first state of the period of repose up to a new federal commencement date so that the period of repose wholly is wholly redundant as to the limitations period. Now, that's a kind of strange way to do a pretty simple thing, isn't it? I disagree, Justice Kagan. It's a very short statute. And what you've just said, as the Amicus-Greet, as the Amicus-Greet for Jerome Enzminger and others pointed out, it's a very simple and effective way of accomplishing this. It's a short statute, statute, and then as you say, it does away with repose periods that have already run. So it's actually a fairly compact and effective way of doing that. Yet also, it's also respectful of for straight states' rights in a couple of ways. Rather than creating a new cause of action, it allows the content of state law to continue. It's just the starting point that was affected, respectful of states' rights in that way. And also very few states even have one of these repose periods. So it was a very simple and effective way to do it, not a, you know, perhaps it could have been done differently. And we could always say Congress could be more clear, but it's actually a very simple and clear and effective way to doing that. And the other side by saying that the statute effectively eliminates repose periods shows how effective that is. That's on Petitioner's Brief page 14. It's in the government's argument today that the statute makes repose periods superfluous. In other words, they've been abolished. It's actually a very, very simple and short. And on the one hand, I thought you just told us they were respectful of the state's concerns. And now you said they completely abolished repose periods. Yes, Your Honor. I said it was, yes, Mr. Chief Justice. It's respectful in that it allowed state law to continue. And if you look at what Congress was facing, well, I'm sorry, not the State law with respect to repose. No, but the State, the State, toward claims we're talking about, such as nuisance, entrusts, pass, and negligence. And the entire content of state law is respected. And I do have to correct something, my friend Mr. Murray said, repose periods under North Carolina Law, they are not an element of an offense that has to be pled. I've been in North Carolina attorney continuously since 1992. I have to tell you as an officer of the Court, they are not pletted as part of complaints. And when somebody wants to move based on a repose period, they do it the same way they would move to dismiss under any limitations period. Under a rule 12v6 or 12v2 motion is done. Is it waived if it's not pled? Is which waived if it's not? Is the statute of repose waived if it's not raised as a defense? There are conflicting state cases on that. I think some say, well, it would be pled at some point. It doesn't have to be raised as an affirmative defense, some cases say. It doesn't have to be raised as an affirmative defense, some cases say. But it is raised in the same way. It's not an element. It's not an element a Court would look at in like a Twamli-Iqbal type situation and say, well, you didn't plead this as an element. What if the State wanted to enact a very long statute of repose? And they said, look, we want to protect latent claims, but there has to be some limit. So we're going to enact a statute of repose of 30 years or 50 years

. And the other side by saying that the statute effectively eliminates repose periods shows how effective that is. That's on Petitioner's Brief page 14. It's in the government's argument today that the statute makes repose periods superfluous. In other words, they've been abolished. It's actually a very, very simple and short. And on the one hand, I thought you just told us they were respectful of the state's concerns. And now you said they completely abolished repose periods. Yes, Your Honor. I said it was, yes, Mr. Chief Justice. It's respectful in that it allowed state law to continue. And if you look at what Congress was facing, well, I'm sorry, not the State law with respect to repose. No, but the State, the State, toward claims we're talking about, such as nuisance, entrusts, pass, and negligence. And the entire content of state law is respected. And I do have to correct something, my friend Mr. Murray said, repose periods under North Carolina Law, they are not an element of an offense that has to be pled. I've been in North Carolina attorney continuously since 1992. I have to tell you as an officer of the Court, they are not pletted as part of complaints. And when somebody wants to move based on a repose period, they do it the same way they would move to dismiss under any limitations period. Under a rule 12v6 or 12v2 motion is done. Is it waived if it's not pled? Is which waived if it's not? Is the statute of repose waived if it's not raised as a defense? There are conflicting state cases on that. I think some say, well, it would be pled at some point. It doesn't have to be raised as an affirmative defense, some cases say. It doesn't have to be raised as an affirmative defense, some cases say. But it is raised in the same way. It's not an element. It's not an element a Court would look at in like a Twamli-Iqbal type situation and say, well, you didn't plead this as an element. What if the State wanted to enact a very long statute of repose? And they said, look, we want to protect latent claims, but there has to be some limit. So we're going to enact a statute of repose of 30 years or 50 years. I mean, you're reading that would be waived out as well, right? It would, Your Honor. And the reason why is what the Congress was concerned about here, which was long latency periods. In periods of up to 40 years, our mentioned in the study group report. And though that seems like a long period, this is really a policy decision. Limitations periods are really pure policy. This Court said so back in 1945 and other times. And Congress made that as a policy decision. If the polluter is not on the hook after 30 years, who would be Justice Alito? It would be the innocent neighbor living nearby, the innocent cancer victim. All of us as taxpayers, Congress made that policy choice that it should be the polluting a company that's put the environmental hazardous waste into the environment. And again, it has limited, it does have a very specific focus to the statute. It's limited to hazardous waste released from a facility into the environment. And in that situation, Congress made the policy choice. The polluter, you are on the hook. You stay on the hook. You clean it up as long as it takes. And the other side, the result, think about what the result would be here for the other side. After 10 years, no liability. The incentive there would be, instead of cleanup, which is the reason 9658 has been passed, instead of cleanup, that would encourage cover-up. In Congress did not want that. Congress wanted, again, polluters to be on the hook as long as it took to clean up. In the clean up, how much you said? The bond to have polluters on the hook, but they didn't even take it. If the state did not have any basis of recovery, this did nothing about that at all. It did not, it did not require states to adopt particular remedies or extend the remedies to cover this. If they didn't have remedies for this type of action, the act that provisions were talking about now, did nothing about that at all. Well, 9658, Mr. Chief Justice, talks about any action under State law for harm to people or property from Hazard's waste released into the environment. And so 9658 was specifically looking at actions for this type of environmental harm. When you talk about horribles that could happen, a state could say, with respect to the special cause of action for creating harm to individuals by hazardous waste, the statute will begin upon discovery and it will last for three months. A state could do that, right? And that would comply with this law, wouldn't it? A three-month statute of limitations

. I mean, you're reading that would be waived out as well, right? It would, Your Honor. And the reason why is what the Congress was concerned about here, which was long latency periods. In periods of up to 40 years, our mentioned in the study group report. And though that seems like a long period, this is really a policy decision. Limitations periods are really pure policy. This Court said so back in 1945 and other times. And Congress made that as a policy decision. If the polluter is not on the hook after 30 years, who would be Justice Alito? It would be the innocent neighbor living nearby, the innocent cancer victim. All of us as taxpayers, Congress made that policy choice that it should be the polluting a company that's put the environmental hazardous waste into the environment. And again, it has limited, it does have a very specific focus to the statute. It's limited to hazardous waste released from a facility into the environment. And in that situation, Congress made the policy choice. The polluter, you are on the hook. You stay on the hook. You clean it up as long as it takes. And the other side, the result, think about what the result would be here for the other side. After 10 years, no liability. The incentive there would be, instead of cleanup, which is the reason 9658 has been passed, instead of cleanup, that would encourage cover-up. In Congress did not want that. Congress wanted, again, polluters to be on the hook as long as it took to clean up. In the clean up, how much you said? The bond to have polluters on the hook, but they didn't even take it. If the state did not have any basis of recovery, this did nothing about that at all. It did not, it did not require states to adopt particular remedies or extend the remedies to cover this. If they didn't have remedies for this type of action, the act that provisions were talking about now, did nothing about that at all. Well, 9658, Mr. Chief Justice, talks about any action under State law for harm to people or property from Hazard's waste released into the environment. And so 9658 was specifically looking at actions for this type of environmental harm. When you talk about horribles that could happen, a state could say, with respect to the special cause of action for creating harm to individuals by hazardous waste, the statute will begin upon discovery and it will last for three months. A state could do that, right? And that would comply with this law, wouldn't it? A three-month statute of limitations. Or the Federal law, it begins to is when the statute commences. But it still is left up to the state to say how long the statute can be, isn't it? As long as what 9658 establishes Justice Scalia is a floor, states can do more. But the floor is when you've discovered that. You can answer yes or no to that, I think. The state can make the statute of limitations as short as it wants. So long as it commences upon the discovery. Yes, Your Honor. Discovery of the cause. No, I can imagine a lot of horribles that can occur with that. Just as you can imagine, horribles that occur under the other system. Yes, yes, yes, certainly Your Honor. A couple of other points, the petitioner's argument and the government's argument relies very much on a cruel. And a cruel was not a term even used in 9658. The plain wording does not even use a cruel. And so that's something we wanted to point out. And the study group report itself on page 59, envisioned tort liability under the Federal Tort claims act if the government was the owner of property and had been negligent with the property. So actions against the government were foreseen. The study group report, again, the concern expressed repeatedly about latency also noted that the problem here is due to ground water contamination from industrial solvents. That's exactly what we have in this case. So back in 1982, the study group envisioned the problems that the country was having, which was ground water contamination from industrial solvents. The study group was making recommendations to the States, and it made two discrete recommendations. One is time the statute of limitations from awareness of the injury and its cause. And the second one was instructing to the States, don't have any reports. Statutes because they were the feet of purpose of taking into account latency. So the study group is addressing state law. Then try to misdemean something different. It provides a federal limitation period that is based on discovery of the injury plus the cause. The second recommendation made by the study committee, a barrage statute to propose, time was didn't do that. Well, I disagree as to them not having done both, Your Honor

. Or the Federal law, it begins to is when the statute commences. But it still is left up to the state to say how long the statute can be, isn't it? As long as what 9658 establishes Justice Scalia is a floor, states can do more. But the floor is when you've discovered that. You can answer yes or no to that, I think. The state can make the statute of limitations as short as it wants. So long as it commences upon the discovery. Yes, Your Honor. Discovery of the cause. No, I can imagine a lot of horribles that can occur with that. Just as you can imagine, horribles that occur under the other system. Yes, yes, yes, certainly Your Honor. A couple of other points, the petitioner's argument and the government's argument relies very much on a cruel. And a cruel was not a term even used in 9658. The plain wording does not even use a cruel. And so that's something we wanted to point out. And the study group report itself on page 59, envisioned tort liability under the Federal Tort claims act if the government was the owner of property and had been negligent with the property. So actions against the government were foreseen. The study group report, again, the concern expressed repeatedly about latency also noted that the problem here is due to ground water contamination from industrial solvents. That's exactly what we have in this case. So back in 1982, the study group envisioned the problems that the country was having, which was ground water contamination from industrial solvents. The study group was making recommendations to the States, and it made two discrete recommendations. One is time the statute of limitations from awareness of the injury and its cause. And the second one was instructing to the States, don't have any reports. Statutes because they were the feet of purpose of taking into account latency. So the study group is addressing state law. Then try to misdemean something different. It provides a federal limitation period that is based on discovery of the injury plus the cause. The second recommendation made by the study committee, a barrage statute to propose, time was didn't do that. Well, I disagree as to them not having done both, Your Honor. If you, Congress did not use the word repose in 96.58, the, you know, but the word choice doesn't matter. If you use the definitions, Congress effectively did both. And that's our argument. Congress did do both. Rather than waiting on the States to do both, Congress itself did both in 96.58. And to follow up an earlier question of yours, Justice Ginsburg, a result to the contrary here, would result in, could result in a race to the bottom, if you will, where states or then incentivized or, you know, lobbied to enact repose periods. Other states could do this, and that would be the sort of race to the bottom Congress would not want. So that is possible. Is there any sign that that's happening? I mean, it seems to me that these are, as we don't, rare and have been rare for some time, right? I mean, do you really expect states to start suddenly enacting statutes of repose? With today's lobbying climate, I wouldn't put it past the realm of possibility. And it was something. Are there lobbyists on both sides of the issue? I don't want to hazard a guess as to the relative powers of the lobbyists, but I think they may go one way and not in favor of the environment. It's the right aid. Any in that we can't trust state legislatures? No, you're right. What I meant was that was to follow up an earlier question of Justice Ginsburg's, so that I thought was suggesting that. If I could end with one final hypothetical, imagine two individuals at age 18, both enrolling in listing in the Marines. And one is stationed by the government in Camp Pendleton in California. And after 10 years of being transferred out of Camp Pendleton, develops a fatal cancer. His relatives would not at all be barred because there's no repose period in California. Imagine another individual enlisted at the same time stationed by the government at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. And after being sent from North Carolina developed the same cancer, the relatives in California would have a claim the North Carolinians, the relatives of the North Carolina, Lennie would not. Thank you, counsel. Mr. Murray, four minutes remaining. Thank you, Your Honors. Briefly, I would say just to respond to a point my brother made here, I would say that a target versus Holland, 447, South East Second at 787, from the North Carolina Supreme Court, as well as Tipton and Young Construction Company, 446, South East Second, 603 from the North Carolina Court of Appeals, both of which may clear that statutes of repose are conditions present at the must be specifically pled under North Carolina law. But the broader point is simply this. Circola, as originally enacted, is a cleanup statute designed to tag people who have touched the property at all with cleanup responsibility regardless of fall

. If you, Congress did not use the word repose in 96.58, the, you know, but the word choice doesn't matter. If you use the definitions, Congress effectively did both. And that's our argument. Congress did do both. Rather than waiting on the States to do both, Congress itself did both in 96.58. And to follow up an earlier question of yours, Justice Ginsburg, a result to the contrary here, would result in, could result in a race to the bottom, if you will, where states or then incentivized or, you know, lobbied to enact repose periods. Other states could do this, and that would be the sort of race to the bottom Congress would not want. So that is possible. Is there any sign that that's happening? I mean, it seems to me that these are, as we don't, rare and have been rare for some time, right? I mean, do you really expect states to start suddenly enacting statutes of repose? With today's lobbying climate, I wouldn't put it past the realm of possibility. And it was something. Are there lobbyists on both sides of the issue? I don't want to hazard a guess as to the relative powers of the lobbyists, but I think they may go one way and not in favor of the environment. It's the right aid. Any in that we can't trust state legislatures? No, you're right. What I meant was that was to follow up an earlier question of Justice Ginsburg's, so that I thought was suggesting that. If I could end with one final hypothetical, imagine two individuals at age 18, both enrolling in listing in the Marines. And one is stationed by the government in Camp Pendleton in California. And after 10 years of being transferred out of Camp Pendleton, develops a fatal cancer. His relatives would not at all be barred because there's no repose period in California. Imagine another individual enlisted at the same time stationed by the government at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. And after being sent from North Carolina developed the same cancer, the relatives in California would have a claim the North Carolinians, the relatives of the North Carolina, Lennie would not. Thank you, counsel. Mr. Murray, four minutes remaining. Thank you, Your Honors. Briefly, I would say just to respond to a point my brother made here, I would say that a target versus Holland, 447, South East Second at 787, from the North Carolina Supreme Court, as well as Tipton and Young Construction Company, 446, South East Second, 603 from the North Carolina Court of Appeals, both of which may clear that statutes of repose are conditions present at the must be specifically pled under North Carolina law. But the broader point is simply this. Circola, as originally enacted, is a cleanup statute designed to tag people who have touched the property at all with cleanup responsibility regardless of fall. That's what it did when it was enacted in 1980, and that's what it still continues to do today. When Congress in 1986, in response to the study group report, enacted this 1968 section, this small surgical change, it did so using defined terms that, and it said what it meant, and it meant what it said. Applicable limitations period doesn't mean anyone that might apply, it's defined in the statute, and may be brought is linked up with beginning of may be brought. That is classic formulation at the beginning of the statute of limitations, not a statute of repose, which commences with defendants last act. And again, this just makes sense. In drafting this statute, Congress was expressly trying to minimize, it may or may not have had in its head specifically the presumption against preemption, but this Court presumes that it does. It was seeking to minimize intrusion into a traditional area of state regulation, and we know that because the statute on its face says state law generally applies except as provided in this provision. It leaves all of state law intact other than this commencement date, and conspicuously does so. And the presumption against preemption and legislative history only confirmed this. Congress wanted 50 flowers to bloom in this area, and it didn't cut that off. And for good reason, repose is an important piece of this puzzle. It gets the counterbalance to the discovery rules that were being enacted by these states in this tumultuous period. By its setting the statute of repose, you avoid the very real possibility that a client like mine can be sued over a site. I mean, there's a fence around a hole in the ground there now. My client hasn't, has abandoned this site in 1987. The suit was brought in 2009. Asking clients to defend these cases, where are the documents? Where are the witnesses? How do you avoid vexatious litigation designed to shake down settlements, 40, 50, and 60 years after you've abandoned a site? What Congress did here makes absolute sense, and the narrow and surgical way in which they did it, given that they were acting in a traditional field of state law supremacy, makes all the sense in the world. So that last argument about, you know, liability 30, 40 years later, I think 46 states have that, have it that way. And Congress wasn't all that worried about that, and there isn't a very strong policy argument that says it's not that it's so fundamentally unfair that you shouldn't do it. Well, again, your honor. Actually, a lot of those states have statutes proposed that deal with property, specifically not the personal injury. It gets a little bit messy because there's not a perfect match there. But the bottom line is the way in which Congress acted here is not at all surprising, given that they knew they were acting in a traditional state field, the heartland of state authority, which was state toward law. Unless the court has further questions. Thank you, Council. The case is submitted.

We will hear an argument next in case 13339 CTS Corporation versus Waldberger. Mr. Murray? Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the Court. CTS should prevail here based on the text of Section 9658 as well as its structure, historical context, and other relevant considerations, all of which make clear that it is a federalism compromise having no effect on statutes of repost. Section 9658 should be construed narrowly to do the one thing that Congress intended it to do, which is to postpone in some situations a single state law statute of limitations commencement date. How many, how many states have, this is a general statute of reposing, nothing to do in particular with circle, is that right? That's right. How many states have such statutes? Well, it gets a little confusing. The study group report indicated there were four of those states. I believe respondents have pointed to four or five. There are also that have to do with personal injury. There are also myriad others that have to do with property damage, so it gets a little confusing to give a strict answer to that. But there were four statutes of repose squarely in the study group before Congress when they enacted this. Subcongress knew about these statutes of repose when they enacted this. But if you were to prevail, then the party's concern might well go to their state legislatures and say, an act of statute of repose. That will get us off the hook. Even before the injured person is aware of the injury and the deposit. The result of that would be to totally defeat what Congress meant to do in saying the trigger is when you know the course of the injury. There has not been a rash of moves to state legislatures since this law has been enacted, so we haven't seen that develop. But if I could respectfully disagree with the premise, I think Congress's purpose here was slightly narrower than saving all long-late and injury claims. I think what Congress was worried about was expedition and making sure that it didn't force people to come to court before under a statute of limitations before they would be expected to. And that set out, the statute itself accomplishes only one thing, Section A1, and I'm reading from page 1 of our opening brief to the Court. It does one thing only, which is if the applicable limitations period for one of these actions as specified in a state law, statute limitations, or under common law, provide a commencement date that's earlier than the federal commencement date, then it substitutes the more favorable commencement date. Commencement date in turn, if we turn to page 2, and this is reading now from B3, commencement date means the date specified in a statute of limitations as the beginning of the applicable limitations period, which again, B2, applicable limitations period is defined as the period specified in a statute of limitations during which one of these civil actions may be brought. So doing the algebra on the definitions, what Congress surgically wanted to do here was to change one thing only if you had a less favorable state commencement date, which is the beginning of which an action may be brought, which is a cruel. If you had one of these less favorable state commencement dates for statute of limitations, Congress wanted to move that, keeping in place. Sotomayor, why would it have wanted to do that and not also get rid of the statute of repos, and presumably the idea is you should have some chance to sue after you've discovered the injury and the cause of the injury. And if here the statute of repos is preventing that, why would Congress have wanted to modify a statute of limitations, but not get rid of the statute of repos? Kagan, I think Congress was trying to be very careful with what it was doing in this area because it knew it was operating in pretty much the heartland of state law and state prerogatives here. And so while it was willing to go as far as the one study group recommendation and change statutes of limitations, a procedural mechanism, it wasn't willing to go right into the heart of the elements of the cause of action and start changing those because it perceived potentially serious federalism problems with doing that. It would be akin to Congress passing a law that says rather than since these negligence is what's it issued here, rather than negligence, Congress passing a law saying the duty of care will be strict liability. I think there are serious constitutional problems with that as we've set out. And so Congress was very careful to tread lightly here and preserve the prerogatives of the states to keep in place. What would be the constitutional problem if Congress had said all people claiming an injury under this statute can commence the action three years after discovery of the cause, to send them. To the extent that's a statute of limitations period is not a problem. But to the extent it were to affect a statute of repose, North Carolina law is very clear that statutes of repose are an element of the cause of action. In other words, unless you plead and prove this element of the North Carolina law cause of action, you're out of court. Had Congress gone so far as to remove an element, I think you're in dangerous constitutional territory. But what kind of a, as I don't follow that, a statute of repose is a time limitation. Is that right? It is. But a statute of repose is designed to accomplish something. It's going after very different objectives than Congress was after with statute of limitation. Statutes of limitations, of course, as this statute reflects are designed, they're about diligence. They're about making sure that people don't sleep on their rights. And so what Congress did here was it left in place, State law as it founded, including the limitations period, the time period itself. And all it did was make one slight modification for those who might not at thought to be able to be as diligent as others and moved that date to a more favorable federal commencement date. So, if that was a, suppose a state has most of these statutes of repose are piggyback on top of statutes of limitation, right? I mean, you know, you have to sue within 10 years after you find the injury, but in any case, a suit must be brought within 20 years after the act that's the basis of your suit, right? But let's assume you have a state which only has a statute of repose. It just says, any suit for this act of negligence must be brought within 10 years after the act occurred. Is that still a statute of repose? It seems to me that would meet your definition of the commencement time for suit would have to be when the act occurred and you have 10 years from then. A statute written in that sort of way which gives permission, which is exactly what Congress was focused on might well be a statute of limitation. It doesn't sound like a statute of repose because again, what Congress wanted to move was the beginning of the period of the act. It doesn't give permission. It just says, you know, you're liable for negligence in this area, but any suit must be brought within 10 years after the act occurred. To the extent that a statute was that and it had only a statute of repose, then we don't believe 96.58 would touch that at all. And that makes sense because what Congress was doing was taking State law as it found it. And there's no obligation for States to have these causes of action at all. States could repeal these causes of action and there would be no right to suit. States could change their statute's limitations to a day after a cruel and that would be fine too. All Congress did was move the date on which a statute of limitations begins to run. The Minister Murphy didn't in just a Scalia's example, what in the text would prevent you from treating that, you know, the single statute which is written as a statute of repose? What in the text is preventing you from saying that the statute applies to it? Yes, Your Honor. B2 and B3 read together. We believe are the two pieces that it would be most relevant. What Congress has chosen to move is the commencement date when State law is less favorable than Federal. Commencement date is defined as beginning of the apple-cable limitations period. An apple-cable limitations period means a period in a statute of limitations when suit may be brought. Right. Soot under North Carolina law may not be brought just because it is a defendant has made an act of omission. Indeed, under North Carolina law, and suit may not be brought until an action of cruise that set out in the- But I think you're messing with the hypothetical now. I mean, assume that the statute of repose is all there is. Now, in fact, you're not going to get any suits because nobody is going to know that they're injured until that they know that they're injured. But why wouldn't that be the commencement date is the thing that triggers the statute of repose, the last act of remission? And the applicable limitations period is the 10 years. If we were in a state where you were permitted to sue, permission to sue was given based on the last act of remission of a defendant, then we would be in a different situation. But here, permission to sue does not arise until your cause of action of cruise. There's a distinction between the last act and a mission of a defendant, which is what starts the running of the statutes of repose on the one hand and the accrual of a cause of action. Yes, but my hypothetical was different. There is no such distinction. There is no statute of limitations. It's only what you call a statute of repose. And I think you have to say that in that situation, it is no longer a statute of repose that it's a statute of limitations. Again, so long as we're reading 96.58 to apply two and only two, it can apply when and only when there is a less favorable state law commencement date. If the state law, as you're positing it, it might well be a statute of limitations. If the state law, as you're positing it, allows someone to bring a cause of action, that starts to sound like a cause of a statute of limitations. Here, the statute of repose is in no way tied to anything having to do with the plaintiff. It is an end date, which begins with the defendant's last act of remission and ends 10 years later, and is the end of the cause of action. None of that is the beginning of an applicable limitations period, the beginning of when someone may bring a suit. When suit has accrued, in other words, under North Carolina law, as we think, 96.58. What was his statute enacted? What was it? 1986. It was not part of the statute. It was not part of the statute. I never heard of this distinction between statutes of repose and statutes of limitations. Well, and there, but to be clear, Congress hasn't always been perfectly clear, and certainly some of this Court's decision says with jurisdiction and standing have made some loose use of the language. But Congress certainly has written into various laws, some of which have been presented in the Amicus briefs here, back-end, hard-end dates after which causes of action may not be brought and all kinds of. Well, yes, but have they ever, have they ever drawn a distinction between statutes of limitations and statutes of repose? Is there any Federal statute that makes that distinction? Or is there any Federal statute which applies only to statutes of repose? There's no Federal statute that makes the distinction between limitations and repose. But there are, as we have had been set out here, many Federal statutes that give this hard-end, back-end protection to defendants and for important reasons, right? Remember that these statutes exist. Oh, yeah, it exists. I mean, these statutes exist, but are they called statutes of repose? Or are they, or are they not considered as I used to consider them when I was in law school, and even as late as 1986? I would have considered that as statute of limitations now. You think Congress is smarter. They know the law better. We think Congress understood the distinction, and this is a harder question to answer, but for those who find resort to legislative history helpful here, remember what Congress did in 1980 they passed CERCLA, and then they commissioned, which was not about towards at all. CERCLA is a broad cleanup statute focused on, you know, without fault, without liability, cleaning up land. It then commissioned a study group of leading folks to get together and figure out whether there should be a tort cause of action, whether there should be other changes made to the law, what else should be done in the tort arena. And that study group report was very clear on the distinction between statutes of repose on the one hand and statutes of limitations on the other. That's what I'm talking about. But in general, Mr. Murphy, I think Justice Scalia is right that in general Congress hasn't made this distinction. In general, this court has not made this distinction. In general, I think this goes back to Justice Ginsburg's point, the purpose behind the slug clearly it doesn't matter either. I mean, either way, if Congress wanted to make sure that people could sue after discovering their injury, a statute of repose, prevents that as well as a statute of limitations does. And yet you're asking us to imagine a Congress that has this very much in its head, both the difference between these two things. And you said the reason that they wanted only to alter the one and not to alter the other is because they thought of the statute of repose as impugnion on a state's constitutional prerogatives. Now, that's a very legally sophisticated Congress here asking us to imagine. You know, to understand this distinction and then to say, oh, yes, look, the statute of repose is really an interference with substantive liability in a way that the statute of limitations is not, and that might raise constitutional avoidance issues. I mean, I think that's pretty sophisticated stuff. Two points, Your Honor. One, actually Congress, at least at this time, was very sophisticated, and we've set out, again, for those who find legislative history to be helpful, we've set out several exchanges right on the floor between members of Congress, where one would ask, what is the difference between a statute of limitations and repose? And I would ask, thank you for asking and explain it really quite succinctly. So, at least at that time. Everybody was listening to that, though. The chamber was full. And it was my first point. But my second point is we don't have to rest on the broad construction of statute limitations versus statute of repose, sort of the broad definitional purpose. I come back to the text and the structure of the statute here, which, again, only does one thing, moving a commencement date defined as the beginning of the period in which one of these actions may be brought. That simply does not define a statute of repose. I thought that what Congress was trying to do was to establish a federally required commencement date, a federal requirement, a federal requirement, commencement date. So, when you ask the question, how much time do I have to sue for one of these circular injuries? And so it would be three years after you know the cause of your injury. Now, on your to pay out this statute of repose, it can no longer be uniformed to that question. That's absolutely right. All Congress was, there is no uniformed answer to that question because a statute of repose does not meet the definition Congress set out in the statute as the beginning of the period in which an action may be brought. That is a cruel, and that speaks to statute of limitations. The beginning of which an action may be brought has nothing to do necessarily with the last act or a mission of a defendant, which is a statute of repose. And again, it's a perfectly logical distinction for Congress to make, given what they were trying to do, the statute itself makes clear that state law otherwise controls, they didn't touch any other part of state law. All they did was this narrow surgical strike at the beginning of statute's limitations. If I may reserve the rest of my time for a bottle. Thank you, Mr. Murray. Mr. Palmore. Thank you, Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the Court. Section 9658 surgically modifies state law tort actions in one limited respect, and otherwise leaves them untouched by changing the commencement date for the time period in which a civil action may be brought. The relevant time is the Palmore, if it's always, if it's not, if it's not, then all of the states and that is ten-year statute of repose. And then that has totally undermined what Congress said about to do in 9650 FDA. I respectfully disagree, Justice Ginsburg, because Congress had before it a report that identified the principal problem in this area as when statutes of limitations periods commenced. And it identified the problem as those minority of states that commenced this running of statute of limitations period at a time of injury as opposed to discovery of injury and its cause. It's critical to understand here that there were only four states, as Council said, at the time that Congress enacted this statute that had statutes of repose, and those were states that all had discovery rules. There's no inconsistency between a statute of repose and a statute of limitations with a discovery rule. They typically go together and they represent a compromise and a balancing of interest on the part of the states that makes enact, enacted, a, in a sense, a pro-plaintiff reform to adopt a discovery rule, but provided for defendants the certainty of a substantive cutoff at an outer range of students going out. But the point is, the question I asked is suppose all of the states have this ten-year statutes of repose? Then there would be no occasion to invoke 96, 58, and the plaintiff would be out of court before the action occurred in some cases. Well, Justice Ginsburg, I guess if you hypothesized a state that had, didn't have a discovery rule, and for some reason had additionally had a statute of repose, I'm not sure why the state would do that, the Federal statute would still work in that setting. But that wasn't the record before Congress. As I said before, there were only four states who had statutes of repose. There's no indication in the text or the legislative history that that was a focus of Congress's attention. Are you acknowledging that if a state had only a so-called statute of repose that the Federal limitation would apply to that? It's only a statute of repose piggybacked on what we've been calling a statute of limitations. It's only that one that survives. I think, Justice Scalia, I think you have to look at the text and structure of the state law and see what is the commencement date of the time period. I think you can answer the question. Yes, yes or no? I mean. They had only, so if North Carolina didn't have a three-year statute of limitations and only had this ten-year statute of repose, I think our position would be the same that Section 96, 58 would not apply. I'm not aware of any state that has such a statute that was no state mentioned in the statute. It's why you ought to give it away. That so I think the critical factor, as Mr. Murray said, was the definitions, the nested definitions in the statute of the beginning of the applicable limitations period. And the applicable limitations period is the period specified during which a civil action may be brought. When can you first go into court with a complete cause of action and file a complaint? You have a statute to say there is a cause of action for X, okay? And a separate statute. There exists a cause of action for X. And a separate statute which says any suit for X cannot be brought after ten years from the act of the defendant that is the basis for the claim. Okay? Why isn't that the commencement date on which you can bring suit where the act occurs? I think it depends on whether under state law you have a complete cause of action and could go into court, file a complaint, and get relief. And I don't think we have to ask any abstract because if you look at page 3A of the government's brief, the appendix to the government's brief, you see what North Carolina law answers this question. It says civil actions can only be commenced. It actually uses the same word. Within the periods prescribed in this chapter, after the cause of action has accrued. So in North Carolina, as is typical of every state that I'm familiar with, the statute of limitations period begins to run when you have an accrued cause of action. Now, North Carolina had actually adopted a discovery rule. So Section 9658 doesn't have any purchase in this case because the commencement date of the statute of limitations period is the same. But I think there are serious problems. I think what I, at least what I take from Justice Scalia's question is that if you think of the, if you imagine, and you're quite right that this doesn't exist in the real world, but if you imagine a statute of repose existing independently, it actually would fit the language of this statute quite fine. The commencement date would be different. It would not be the date of a cruel. It would be the date of the defendant's last act. But still, the statute would work perfectly well. And I suppose if you think that, then in a case in which there was both, the question would be why wouldn't you just apply this statute to both? Well, I'd like to go to that question because I think that goes to the rather strange reading of the statute that Respondents advance. So Respondents suggest that when A1 talks about a comparison between a Federal commencement date and the applicable limitations period under State law, Congress would have contemplated that there would be a comparison to multiple limitations periods under State law. Furthermore, it assumes that the solution that Congress would have arrived at to an issue with statutes of repose was to have a statute of repose periods start with a discovery rule, which would be a creature unknown to the law. And third, they assumed that what Congress did here was contemplate that in a state like North Carolina that had two different time limitation periods of two different lengths that Congress's solution was to require a common starting point for both rendering the longer limitations period, strangely superfluous. If Congress would have gone about this in a much more straightforward way, if it had wanted to accept the study group's suggestion that it repeal, or the suggestion was actually directed to the states, that the states repeal statutes of repose, Congress would have done so explicitly. It wouldn't have done so by awkwardly layering a discovery rule on top of statutes of repose. And Justice Scalia, this distinction between statutes of limitations and statutes of repose, we agreed it's not the label that controls. We think Congress here showed, by the way, the definitions in the way this provision works, what it had in mind when it talked about statutes of limitations. But the sub-tab difference between the two is something that both this Court's cases and the law generally recognize that the North Carolina cases that we cite in our brief and the petitioner cite black and redrow in particular are quite clear in the distinguishing between the two. This Court in Lamp, when talking about the one-year, three-year limitations period under the securities laws, distinguished between the two and said there would be no equitable tolling applied to the period of repose, the three-year limit in the securities laws that didn't turn on the label, that turned on the substance of how these things work. It didn't turn on the label in part because I was looking at the opinion it talks about statutes of limitations. So it's not that helps the other side, although the repose period helps you. It's right. Justice Kennedy, it's not a question of labels. It's a question of the definitions in this statute and how this statute actually works. We agree the labels aren't dispositive. And as we discussed in our brief, Justice Scalia, conflict of laws is another area in which the courts consistently draw a distinction between statutes of limitations, which they classify as procedural, and thus the forum state can apply its own statute of limitations law, and statutes of repose, which the court. There's the restatement for statute of repose, as they go back to what at least I learned in law school. There's the statute of limitations, and then there's a so-called built-in statute of limitations. Statute of limitations, general, covered all claims, but a built-in statute of limitations was considered to limit, not simply the remedy, but the right. That is the distinction that the North Carolina cases draw. Sometimes it can be specific to a statutory cause of action. Sometimes it can be generally applicable. The policy consideration behind a statute of reposes is related, but distinct from a statute of limitations, which is about incentivizing the plaintiff to get into court quickly. The statute of repose is intended to provide certainty at the back end to a defendant so it can order its affairs, have insurance policies that make sense, and that statute of repose as an element of substantive state law will go with that defendant if it sued in any other state where there might be venue or personal jurisdiction. As a substantive matter of North Carolina law, that statute of repose will follow. So this is a distinction that the law has generally recognized, and it wouldn't be at all surprising that in the context of a Federalism Compromise, which to what 9658 really was, that Congress would have chosen to mirror that same distinction. It would have decided to go after the principal problem that was before it, which was an issue of discovery rules, the absence of discovery rules in certain states, without more deeply intruding into the substance of state law. These are state law tort actions that are quintessentially within the responsibility and the sovereignty of the states. Kagan-Mr. Baumel, what do you think the commencement date in this case was? Kagan-The commencement date in this case, I think, was probably in 2009 when, under both North Carolina law and the Federal Commencement date, when these respondents were learned from the EPA that their well water was contaminated. Because at that time, they both discovered their injury and they understood the cause. So- Kagan-But how could that be the beginning of the period's door in which his suit may be brought? I mean, he couldn't bring suit on that date. Kagan-Well, we think the best way to do that. Kagan-See, it seems something sort of internally contradictory in your interpretation here. Kagan-I guess. Kagan-We think there are two ways of looking at it in either way that the petitioner is correct. One is you look at just the statute of limitations period, which is the applicable limitations period for purposes of the statute. So that 2009 would be the commencement date there, even if there might be a separate barrier to relief. But second, even if you say there is no commencement date under State law, then under A1, there is no commencement date under State law, A4 should RRI that had, that was earlier than the Federal Commencement date. So you end up at the same place. Kagan-Thank you, Council. Mr. Corzon. Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the Court. I'd like to start with the plain wording of 96.58, but first just say a sentence or two about the purpose. The purpose of Section 96.58 is to preserve claims for latent harm from environmental releases, from the facility of hazardous waste, until the person discovers the cause of that latent harm. And latent harm, which is all over the legislative history, but with neither of my friends for the petitioners mentioned, latent harm is what the statute was preserved a past for, and latent harm includes things such as the groundwater contamination in this case, or cancers such as in the Campos Unicase. Well, and the whole purpose of the statute of repose is very different. That's to give you a drop, you know, completely finished date, so whatever was latent or not latent, it's over with. It's a different purpose than a statute of limitations. Yes, Your Honor, but Congress was concerned about preserving claims, and it was to have one purpose here. I agree it had one purpose, but the one purpose of 96.58 was to give a uniform trigger date for everybody to have the time to bring a claim, start to run only after they discovered their harm. And that is cut off by a statute of repose, yet it would be by repose period, just as it would be by any other limitation. Well, I think there's merit to your argument, but the point is, is there is no cause of action if there's a repose period and the suit is commenced later. And the study commission did recognize this distinction between as limitations and repose. I agree with Justice Glee. I didn't have Justice Ginsburg law professor, but this was new for me. Your Honor, it was new. If I could circle back to the study group in just a minute, in fact, other than it was mentioned in lamps, but in a confusing way. Agreed, and I also like to circle back to lamps. But first, Petitioner's own brief on page 32 says that this was a newly emerging technological distinction, a newly emerging terminological distinction as in 1986. And to return back to one of Justice Kagan's questions, it expects an awful lot for Congress to have been aware of that and made this distinction that it's not even made to this day. And to be clear. It was aware of it because the study group used the two terms, and they knew there were two different statutes because they were told. Now, how you make assumptions, I'm assuming that if there's a report as there was with this, that people would be responding to it in the legislation that's being drafted. Yes, Your Honor. Yes, Justice Sotomayor. Let me talk about that distinction for just a minute. The study group report, and it's a very impressive work, about 700 pages long, one time. One time does it use the term statutes of repose. And in that one use, it's within the heading of statute of limitations. And what the study group said is that in a handful of states, statutes of repose have the same effect of statutes of limitations without a discovery rule as barring people's claims before they know they've been harmed. And it said nothing about one is substantive, one is procedural. It just said they have the same effect. And therefore, and therefore, should be repealed, not and therefore should be covered by the Federal statute. Both recommendations, Justice Scalia, both recommendations, and this is crucial, both recommendations in the study group report were directed at the states. It said states should adopt discovery rules, and states should repeal statutes of repose. Congress didn't wait on either of those. Congress anyway, as the government argued, it doesn't matter. It's not a matter of terminology. It's a matter of reality. It's a matter that these two things, whether they were given different names in 1986 or not, are quite different things. And do you deny that they are quite different things? And that therefore, the statute may apply to them quite differently? I do, Your Honor, and I do deny that they are quite different. They have, at core, the same basic similarity of defining a period when an action may be brought. And that's the language used in the secondary authorities of the day and used by Congress. They both define periods when an action may be brought. Now, there are some distinctions that, again, have emerged more clearly in some lower courts since 1986, but they have at that bottom, even to this day, the fact that they are both periods when an action may be brought. Why would these four states have two of them then? I remember they are doing the same thing. Why have two different ones? The states that have those, Your Honor, don't even classify them as statutes of repose. In fact, the North Carolina one here, and you can see it on page three of the red brief. It's not in the blue brief. But the North Carolina statute, what we're talking about is one sentence out of paragraph 16 in a statute of limitations. But it's an important difference because in the states that have repose statutes, there can be no tolling. I mean, that's huge, a minor, an incompetent person can't sue. That is a difference, Your Honor, but it's not a difference that was significant to Congress. Congress was trying to preserve claims for people of latent harm. I'm saying that repose statutes, when they exist, impose substantial hardships on people that the state otherwise protects minors and incompetence. They're out of luck. Well, in 9658, there's in fact provisions for minors and incompetence. And so, statutes and limitations typically have those, but yet they are included in the whole point. Statutes every post do not. Which suggests 9658 had statutes of repose in mind. There'd be no need to protect minors for a statute of limitations where there is equitable tolling. But putting aside tolling, I think we all concede that what we're talking about here is a statute of limitation. We're not saying it's also a statute of, everyone concede that there is a statute of limitations here. The federal law is a statute of limitation. And so it protects minors. Well, this other statute of repose supersedes it. You can't quote us to the minors part of the statute and say that it isn't because that doesn't address the point. You still have the general equitable point where the position of the petitioner might frustrate Congress's intent. Well, putting aside minors, Your Honor, the plain language here applies to any type of period, whether you call it a limitations period or repose period. The plain language applies to you. Is your understanding of the operation of the statute is the applicable limitations period? Do you see the statute as applying Sirriottam first to the statute of limitations and then to the statute of repose? Or is the applicable limitations period the period that you can sue when you combine those two? In most states, you just have one period. So in this case, here we have a hybrid statute of limitations. That's what it's been called. It's also been called a bifurcated statute of limitations. It's also been called a two tiered statute of limitations. Yes, I just want to know, how do you apply this statute to what we have here? Is there a single applicable limitations period which represents the period when given both clauses you can sue or are you saying that there are two applicable limitations periods? In this statute, too, and in the small number of other states, there are two periods, both a three-year period and a ten-year period. Then you stumble into the difficulty that the petitioner pointed out, or maybe it was the government pointed out, a one does not refer to two statutes of limitations. It says, if the applicable limitations period for such action as specified in these state statute of limitations provides a commencement date, which is earlier. Now, you know, if they were really covering two different and vision that in some states you had two statutes of limitations, it seems to me they should have phrased it differently if the applicable limitations period or periods for such action as specified in the state statutes of limitations provides a commencement date or commencement dates, something like that. Is all in the singular? Yes, Justice Scalia, let me address this singular point. What we have here, again, is a hybrid statutes with two periods, which were rare then and rare now, but in that rare situation, the applicable limitations period is the one that a defendant is asking a court to apply to dismiss a case with prejudice. And in this case, that's the ten-year period. That's the applicable limitations period. Now, the petitioner, on the other hand, and the government, they both say there's no period in this case. No, there's no period in this case where a case may have been brought. So in other words, under their reading, there is no applicable period. But the statute here can easily read to have two. I don't know why you're even carrying. Isn't the applicable limitations period as far as you're concerned, the period in which you can bring a sit? And that would be the shorter one under all circumstances. And aren't you saying that statute of repose are preempted because you couldn't bring a suit? Yes, Your Honor. And that shows, that gets to the contradiction that was brought up during the petitioner's argument. The petitioner argues that Congress only addressed one part of the study groups' recommendations the discovery rule, but not repose periods. But on the other hand, they argue under our reading, a repose period would never apply. And that shows that the study groups' recommendations were carried out. You know, the statute does not refer to your cause of action. So it's hard to say that the period refers to, it refers to, is the period that you're trying to get around. It says, if the limitations period for such action, that is, any action brought under, any action brought under State law, I think to read that as applying to whatever limitations period is asserted against a particular plaintiff, I find it hard to read it that way. It seems to me that they're referring to a limitations period for the action that exists under State law, regardless of what is alleged in the particular complaint. Anyway, I think you got a real problem with the singular versus plural phrasing of number points. Well, to say one more thing about singular versus plural, we have a cited addiction area act, one U.S.A. one, U.S.A. one, which says that the singular ordinarily is read as the plural. Now, I know there's been a couple of decisions saying that's a rarely applied rule. But I mean, I take it, Mr. Kursen, that your argument is a little bit different. I mean, it seems Justice Scalia would have a point if it just said, if the limitations period, your argument is that you put in the word applicable, and it actually makes the statute read a little bit differently. It suggests that there are plural limitations period, and the one that this provision applies to is whichever one happens to be applicable as you apply the provision. I think that's exactly right, Justice Scalia. Except they're both applicable to this cause of action. Both of those periods are applicable. You run a foul of one of them, but not of the other one. It doesn't mean they are not both applicable. Yeah, anyway. This is certainly. It is angels on the head of a pin, isn't it? If I could speak a little bit about commencement date, commencement date is defined as the beginning of the period when an action may be brought. And the petitioner and the government argue that there never was a period when an action may be brought here. And in fact, however, on page 18, we've cited numerous authorities that define a repose period as exactly that when an action may be brought. That's a definition of for a repose period. What does it take this, the fact of this case, ten years' statute of repose? There was never a time when these plaintiffs write, this plaintiffs had an action it could be brought. Because the ten year limitation ended their right to seek before they had a claim. Yes, Your Honor. Except that that's not how the terms are defined. And we've cited cases on page 18 in North Carolina cases, in fact, and also the corpus juror's section that Petitioner relied on, defining a statute of repose exactly as that as a period when an action may be brought. Now, in their reply brief, Petitioner says, faced with those authorities, Petitioner says, well, no, no. A repose period is actually a period after which an action may not be brought. But that's really just two ways of saying the same thing. When an action may be brought or a period after which an action may not be brought. It depends whether they have a discovery rule or not, whether it's a period when an action may be brought or whether it's a period after which an action may not be brought. And the whole purpose of this was to require a discovery rule. And once you require a discovery rule, the statute of repose has completely independent meaning. Complete serves a completely independent office. The purpose, however, of Mr. Chief Justice was to preserve claims for latent harm, no matter what the period was that began. The purpose was to have a uniform trigger date that started the time to bring an action once you had discovered your harm. And if you use the defined terms here, then it applies to any type of period. Whether you call it a limitation period or a repose period, no matter what you call it. Well, the purpose of the statute of repose is not to preserve latent causes of action. It's quite the opposite. It's to put an end to, in particular, latent causes of action that haven't been brought. Yes, Your Honor, but Congress's purpose was to preserve claims no matter what the period was. Congress was concerned about people not having their day in court. And this is in the House Conference Report. It's all over the study group report. People not having their day in court because a period ran before they began to ran before they discovered their harm. And that applies to a repose period. Congress's doing away with, I don't know if any such date exists. But as soon the State said, now, we're tired of environmental claims, you can't have them. We're not going to have one at all. Was Congress preempting that decision? Not here in 96.58, Your Honor. No, no. Congress was preempting the commencing. So why isn't the repose like that? Well, why isn't a statute of repose simply a decision that you just can't have a claim at all? Well, if it's older than 20 years old? Well, going back to the plain wording, Your Honor, it has a commencement date. It has a beginning. It begins from the Defense Last Act. It does have a beginning. And it's not a commencement date in the term, commencement means commencement of a lawsuit. The true, the true, the clear for the statute of repose here is not a commencement of a lawsuit date. It is the commencement of the running of the limitation period, but it isn't the time when you can commence a lawsuit. It is the beginning of the period of a time when an action may be brought, which is exactly how Congress defined the term. It does have a commencement date because it does have a beginning and it does define a period when an action. But you couldn't commence a action. So the last, the different commits the last act and then plenty of sues the next day. Well, plenty of cancer the next day, just the plan that doesn't know that she's been injured. Correct, Your Honor. But that's not how Congress defined the terms. Congress gave specific. The Big Dub on State Statutes. And as I understand it, the very purpose of the statute of repose or the built-in statute of limitations is to check the discovery rule, to say, we really want the discovery rule to operate after a certain amount of time. So that amount of time is passed. So the notion of what has been called the statute of repose and the discovery rule, the very purpose of the report is statute is to say, no discovery rule. That is correct, Your Honor. And that was not Congress's purpose. Congress wasn't in this specific area of hazardous waste released into the environment. Congress's purpose wasn't figuring out the difference between these different statutes and whether the State wanted to bar claims or not. Congress was trying to preserve claims and use defined terms that do preserve claims. No matter what you call the type of period, Congress is trying to preserve claims for long latency illness. That's very apparent. And my friends, the petitioner in the government, you'll notice in their brief, they may be mentioned latency once, today at all argument, neither mentioned latency. That's what Congress was concerned about. It's all over the study report. It's in the House Conference Report more times than they brought up here. Latency and long latency illness is exactly what Congress was concerned about. And repose periods affect that more than any other type of limitations period. So if I could talk a little bit about the purpose of the act, the evolution of this statute is very important here. It dates back to 9651, which was enacted in 1980 when Circlid Self was enacted. 9651 set up the study group to study barriers to recovery, to in cases involving harm to man and the environment, barriers to recovery. And the study group was a very distinguished group with attorneys, generals, and others from the legal community. And the study group determined that a main barrier to recovery were limitations periods that ran before people discovered their harm. And unanimously recommended that States act to enact discovery rules but also abolish repose periods. And then the House Conference Report states that's what was addressed, the problem of long latency illnesses. Kagan, you said it awfully strange way to abolish a repose period, right? I mean, one way to abolish a repose period is just to abolish a repose period. Another way is to say what Congress seems to have said here, which is move the first state of the period of repose up to a new federal commencement date so that the period of repose wholly is wholly redundant as to the limitations period. Now, that's a kind of strange way to do a pretty simple thing, isn't it? I disagree, Justice Kagan. It's a very short statute. And what you've just said, as the Amicus-Greet, as the Amicus-Greet for Jerome Enzminger and others pointed out, it's a very simple and effective way of accomplishing this. It's a short statute, statute, and then as you say, it does away with repose periods that have already run. So it's actually a fairly compact and effective way of doing that. Yet also, it's also respectful of for straight states' rights in a couple of ways. Rather than creating a new cause of action, it allows the content of state law to continue. It's just the starting point that was affected, respectful of states' rights in that way. And also very few states even have one of these repose periods. So it was a very simple and effective way to do it, not a, you know, perhaps it could have been done differently. And we could always say Congress could be more clear, but it's actually a very simple and clear and effective way to doing that. And the other side by saying that the statute effectively eliminates repose periods shows how effective that is. That's on Petitioner's Brief page 14. It's in the government's argument today that the statute makes repose periods superfluous. In other words, they've been abolished. It's actually a very, very simple and short. And on the one hand, I thought you just told us they were respectful of the state's concerns. And now you said they completely abolished repose periods. Yes, Your Honor. I said it was, yes, Mr. Chief Justice. It's respectful in that it allowed state law to continue. And if you look at what Congress was facing, well, I'm sorry, not the State law with respect to repose. No, but the State, the State, toward claims we're talking about, such as nuisance, entrusts, pass, and negligence. And the entire content of state law is respected. And I do have to correct something, my friend Mr. Murray said, repose periods under North Carolina Law, they are not an element of an offense that has to be pled. I've been in North Carolina attorney continuously since 1992. I have to tell you as an officer of the Court, they are not pletted as part of complaints. And when somebody wants to move based on a repose period, they do it the same way they would move to dismiss under any limitations period. Under a rule 12v6 or 12v2 motion is done. Is it waived if it's not pled? Is which waived if it's not? Is the statute of repose waived if it's not raised as a defense? There are conflicting state cases on that. I think some say, well, it would be pled at some point. It doesn't have to be raised as an affirmative defense, some cases say. It doesn't have to be raised as an affirmative defense, some cases say. But it is raised in the same way. It's not an element. It's not an element a Court would look at in like a Twamli-Iqbal type situation and say, well, you didn't plead this as an element. What if the State wanted to enact a very long statute of repose? And they said, look, we want to protect latent claims, but there has to be some limit. So we're going to enact a statute of repose of 30 years or 50 years. I mean, you're reading that would be waived out as well, right? It would, Your Honor. And the reason why is what the Congress was concerned about here, which was long latency periods. In periods of up to 40 years, our mentioned in the study group report. And though that seems like a long period, this is really a policy decision. Limitations periods are really pure policy. This Court said so back in 1945 and other times. And Congress made that as a policy decision. If the polluter is not on the hook after 30 years, who would be Justice Alito? It would be the innocent neighbor living nearby, the innocent cancer victim. All of us as taxpayers, Congress made that policy choice that it should be the polluting a company that's put the environmental hazardous waste into the environment. And again, it has limited, it does have a very specific focus to the statute. It's limited to hazardous waste released from a facility into the environment. And in that situation, Congress made the policy choice. The polluter, you are on the hook. You stay on the hook. You clean it up as long as it takes. And the other side, the result, think about what the result would be here for the other side. After 10 years, no liability. The incentive there would be, instead of cleanup, which is the reason 9658 has been passed, instead of cleanup, that would encourage cover-up. In Congress did not want that. Congress wanted, again, polluters to be on the hook as long as it took to clean up. In the clean up, how much you said? The bond to have polluters on the hook, but they didn't even take it. If the state did not have any basis of recovery, this did nothing about that at all. It did not, it did not require states to adopt particular remedies or extend the remedies to cover this. If they didn't have remedies for this type of action, the act that provisions were talking about now, did nothing about that at all. Well, 9658, Mr. Chief Justice, talks about any action under State law for harm to people or property from Hazard's waste released into the environment. And so 9658 was specifically looking at actions for this type of environmental harm. When you talk about horribles that could happen, a state could say, with respect to the special cause of action for creating harm to individuals by hazardous waste, the statute will begin upon discovery and it will last for three months. A state could do that, right? And that would comply with this law, wouldn't it? A three-month statute of limitations. Or the Federal law, it begins to is when the statute commences. But it still is left up to the state to say how long the statute can be, isn't it? As long as what 9658 establishes Justice Scalia is a floor, states can do more. But the floor is when you've discovered that. You can answer yes or no to that, I think. The state can make the statute of limitations as short as it wants. So long as it commences upon the discovery. Yes, Your Honor. Discovery of the cause. No, I can imagine a lot of horribles that can occur with that. Just as you can imagine, horribles that occur under the other system. Yes, yes, yes, certainly Your Honor. A couple of other points, the petitioner's argument and the government's argument relies very much on a cruel. And a cruel was not a term even used in 9658. The plain wording does not even use a cruel. And so that's something we wanted to point out. And the study group report itself on page 59, envisioned tort liability under the Federal Tort claims act if the government was the owner of property and had been negligent with the property. So actions against the government were foreseen. The study group report, again, the concern expressed repeatedly about latency also noted that the problem here is due to ground water contamination from industrial solvents. That's exactly what we have in this case. So back in 1982, the study group envisioned the problems that the country was having, which was ground water contamination from industrial solvents. The study group was making recommendations to the States, and it made two discrete recommendations. One is time the statute of limitations from awareness of the injury and its cause. And the second one was instructing to the States, don't have any reports. Statutes because they were the feet of purpose of taking into account latency. So the study group is addressing state law. Then try to misdemean something different. It provides a federal limitation period that is based on discovery of the injury plus the cause. The second recommendation made by the study committee, a barrage statute to propose, time was didn't do that. Well, I disagree as to them not having done both, Your Honor. If you, Congress did not use the word repose in 96.58, the, you know, but the word choice doesn't matter. If you use the definitions, Congress effectively did both. And that's our argument. Congress did do both. Rather than waiting on the States to do both, Congress itself did both in 96.58. And to follow up an earlier question of yours, Justice Ginsburg, a result to the contrary here, would result in, could result in a race to the bottom, if you will, where states or then incentivized or, you know, lobbied to enact repose periods. Other states could do this, and that would be the sort of race to the bottom Congress would not want. So that is possible. Is there any sign that that's happening? I mean, it seems to me that these are, as we don't, rare and have been rare for some time, right? I mean, do you really expect states to start suddenly enacting statutes of repose? With today's lobbying climate, I wouldn't put it past the realm of possibility. And it was something. Are there lobbyists on both sides of the issue? I don't want to hazard a guess as to the relative powers of the lobbyists, but I think they may go one way and not in favor of the environment. It's the right aid. Any in that we can't trust state legislatures? No, you're right. What I meant was that was to follow up an earlier question of Justice Ginsburg's, so that I thought was suggesting that. If I could end with one final hypothetical, imagine two individuals at age 18, both enrolling in listing in the Marines. And one is stationed by the government in Camp Pendleton in California. And after 10 years of being transferred out of Camp Pendleton, develops a fatal cancer. His relatives would not at all be barred because there's no repose period in California. Imagine another individual enlisted at the same time stationed by the government at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. And after being sent from North Carolina developed the same cancer, the relatives in California would have a claim the North Carolinians, the relatives of the North Carolina, Lennie would not. Thank you, counsel. Mr. Murray, four minutes remaining. Thank you, Your Honors. Briefly, I would say just to respond to a point my brother made here, I would say that a target versus Holland, 447, South East Second at 787, from the North Carolina Supreme Court, as well as Tipton and Young Construction Company, 446, South East Second, 603 from the North Carolina Court of Appeals, both of which may clear that statutes of repose are conditions present at the must be specifically pled under North Carolina law. But the broader point is simply this. Circola, as originally enacted, is a cleanup statute designed to tag people who have touched the property at all with cleanup responsibility regardless of fall. That's what it did when it was enacted in 1980, and that's what it still continues to do today. When Congress in 1986, in response to the study group report, enacted this 1968 section, this small surgical change, it did so using defined terms that, and it said what it meant, and it meant what it said. Applicable limitations period doesn't mean anyone that might apply, it's defined in the statute, and may be brought is linked up with beginning of may be brought. That is classic formulation at the beginning of the statute of limitations, not a statute of repose, which commences with defendants last act. And again, this just makes sense. In drafting this statute, Congress was expressly trying to minimize, it may or may not have had in its head specifically the presumption against preemption, but this Court presumes that it does. It was seeking to minimize intrusion into a traditional area of state regulation, and we know that because the statute on its face says state law generally applies except as provided in this provision. It leaves all of state law intact other than this commencement date, and conspicuously does so. And the presumption against preemption and legislative history only confirmed this. Congress wanted 50 flowers to bloom in this area, and it didn't cut that off. And for good reason, repose is an important piece of this puzzle. It gets the counterbalance to the discovery rules that were being enacted by these states in this tumultuous period. By its setting the statute of repose, you avoid the very real possibility that a client like mine can be sued over a site. I mean, there's a fence around a hole in the ground there now. My client hasn't, has abandoned this site in 1987. The suit was brought in 2009. Asking clients to defend these cases, where are the documents? Where are the witnesses? How do you avoid vexatious litigation designed to shake down settlements, 40, 50, and 60 years after you've abandoned a site? What Congress did here makes absolute sense, and the narrow and surgical way in which they did it, given that they were acting in a traditional field of state law supremacy, makes all the sense in the world. So that last argument about, you know, liability 30, 40 years later, I think 46 states have that, have it that way. And Congress wasn't all that worried about that, and there isn't a very strong policy argument that says it's not that it's so fundamentally unfair that you shouldn't do it. Well, again, your honor. Actually, a lot of those states have statutes proposed that deal with property, specifically not the personal injury. It gets a little bit messy because there's not a perfect match there. But the bottom line is the way in which Congress acted here is not at all surprising, given that they knew they were acting in a traditional state field, the heartland of state authority, which was state toward law. Unless the court has further questions. Thank you, Council. The case is submitted