BOWLES v. RUSSELL, WARDEN

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Syllabus
BOWLES v. RUSSELL, WARDEN
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for
the sixth circuit
No. 06–5306. Argued March 26, 2007—Decided June 14, 2007
Having failed to file a timely notice of appeal from the Federal District
Court’s denial of habeas relief, petitioner Bowles moved to reopen the
filing period pursuant to Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(a)(6),
which allows a district court to grant a 14-day extension under certain
conditions, see 28 U. S. C. § 2107(c). The District Court granted Bowles’
motion but inexplicably gave him 17 days to file his notice of appeal.
He filed within the 17 days allowed by the District Court, but after the
14-day period allowed by Rule 4(a)(6) and § 2107(c). The Sixth Circuit
held that the notice was untimely and that it therefore lacked jurisdic
tion to hear the case under this Court’s precedent.
Held: Bowles’ untimely notice of appeal—though filed in reliance upon
the District Court’s order—deprived the Sixth Circuit of jurisdiction.
Pp. 208–215.
(a) The taking of an appeal in a civil case within the time prescribed
by statute is “mandatory and jurisdictional.” Griggs v. Provident Con
sumer Discount Co., 459 U. S. 56, 61 (per curiam). There is a signifi
cant distinction between time limitations set forth in a statute such as
§ 2107, which limit a court’s jurisdiction, see, e. g., Kontrick v. Ryan, 540
U. S. 443, 453, and those based on court rules, which do not, see, e. g., id.,
at 454. Arbaugh v. Y & H Corp., 546 U. S. 500, 505, and Scarborough v.
Principi, 541 U. S. 401, 413, distinguished. Because Congress decides,
within constitutional bounds, whether federal courts can hear cases at
all, it can also determine when, and under what conditions, federal
courts can hear them. See United States v. Curry, 6 How. 106, 113.
And when an “appeal has not been prosecuted in the manner directed,
within the time limited by the acts of Congress, it must be dismissed
for want of jurisdiction.” Ibid. The resolution of this case follows nat
urally from this reasoning. Because Congress specifically limited the
amount of time by which district courts can extend the notice-of-appeal
period in § 2107(c), Bowles’ failure to file in accordance with the statute
deprived the Court of Appeals of jurisdiction. And because Bowles’
error is one of jurisdictional magnitude, he cannot rely on forfeiture or
waiver to excuse his lack of compliance. Pp. 209–213.
(b) Bowles’ reliance on the “unique circumstances” doctrine, rooted in
Harris Truck Lines, Inc. v. Cherry Meat Packers, Inc., 371 U. S. 215

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206 BOWLES v. RUSSELL
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(per curiam), and applied in Thompson v. INS, 375 U. S. 384 (per cu
riam), is rejected. Because this Court has no authority to create equi
table exceptions to jurisdictional requirements, use of the doctrine is
illegitimate. Harris Truck Lines and Thompson are overruled to the
extent they purport to authorize an exception to a jurisdictional rule.
Pp. 213–214.
432 F. 3d 668, affirmed.
Thomas, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J.,
and Scalia, Kennedy, and Alito, JJ., joined. Souter, J., filed a dissent
ing opinion, in which Stevens, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ., joined, post,
p. 215.
Paul Mancino, Jr., argued the cause for petitioner. With
him on the briefs were Paul Mancino III and Brett Mancino.
William P. Marshall argued the cause for respondent.
With him on the brief were Marc Dann, Attorney General
of Ohio, Elise W. Porter, Acting Solicitor General, and Ste
phen P. Carney, Robert J. Krummen, and Elizabeth T. Scavo,
Deputy Solicitors.
Malcolm L. Stewart argued the cause for the United
States as amicus curiae urging affirmance. On the brief
were Solicitor General Clement, Assistant Attorney Gen
eral Keisler, Deputy Solicitor General Dreeben, Eric D.
Miller, Douglas N. Letter, and Lowell V. Sturgill, Jr.*
Justice Thomas delivered the opinion of the Court.
In this case, a District Court purported to extend a party’s
time for filing an appeal beyond the period allowed by stat
ute. We must decide whether the Court of Appeals had ju
risdiction to entertain an appeal filed after the statutory pe
riod but within the period allowed by the District Court’s
order. We have long and repeatedly held that the time lim
its for filing a notice of appeal are jurisdictional in nature.
Accordingly, we hold that petitioner’s untimely notice—even
*Amy Howe, Kevin K. Russell, and Jeffrey L. Fisher filed a brief for
the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers as amicus curiae
urging reversal.

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though filed in reliance upon a District Court’s order—
deprived the Court of Appeals of jurisdiction.
I
In 1999, an Ohio jury convicted petitioner Keith Bowles of
murder for his involvement in the beating death of Ollie Gip
son. The jury sentenced Bowles to 15-years-to-life impris
onment. Bowles unsuccessfully challenged his conviction
and sentence on direct appeal.
Bowles then filed a federal habeas corpus application on
September 5, 2002. On September 9, 2003, the District
Court denied Bowles habeas relief. After the entry of final
judgment, Bowles had 30 days to file a notice of appeal.
Fed. Rule App. Proc. 4(a)(1)(A); 28 U. S. C. § 2107(a). He
failed to do so. On December 12, 2003, Bowles moved to
reopen the period during which he could file his notice of
appeal pursuant to Rule 4(a)(6), which allows district courts
to extend the filing period for 14 days from the day the
district court grants the order to reopen, provided certain
conditions are met. See § 2107(c).
On February 10, 2004, the District Court granted Bowles’
motion. But rather than extending the time period by 14
days, as Rule 4(a)(6) and § 2107(c) allow, the District Court
inexplicably gave Bowles 17 days—until February 27—to file
his notice of appeal. Bowles filed his notice on February
26—within the 17 days allowed by the District Court’s order,
but after the 14-day period allowed by Rule 4(a)(6) and
§ 2107(c).
On appeal, respondent Russell argued that Bowles’ notice
was untimely and that the Court of Appeals therefore lacked
jurisdiction to hear the case. The Court of Appeals agreed.
It first recognized that this Court has consistently held the
requirement of filing a timely notice of appeal is “mandatory
and jurisdictional.” 432 F. 3d 668, 673 (CA6 2005) (citing
Browder v. Director, Dept. of Corrections of Ill., 434 U. S.
257, 264 (1978)). The court also noted that Courts of Ap

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208 BOWLES v. RUSSELL
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peals have uniformly held that Rule 4(a)(6)’s 180-day period
for filing a motion to reopen is also mandatory and not
susceptible to equitable modification. 432 F. 3d, at 673 (col
lecting cases). Concluding that “the fourteen-day period
in Rule 4(a)(6) should be treated as strictly as the 180-day
period in that same Rule,” id., at 676, the Court of Appeals
held that it was without jurisdiction. We granted certiorari,
549 U. S. 1092 (2006), and now affirm.
II
According to 28 U. S. C. § 2107(a), parties must file notices
of appeal within 30 days of the entry of the judgment being
appealed. District courts have limited authority to grant an
extension of the 30-day time period. Relevant to this case,
if certain conditions are met, district courts have the statu
tory authority to grant motions to reopen the time for filing
an appeal for 14 additional days. § 2107(c). Rule 4 of the
Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure carries § 2107 into
practice. In accord with § 2107(c), Rule 4(a)(6) describes the
district court’s authority to reopen and extend the time for
filing a notice of appeal after the lapse of the usual 30 days:
“(6) Reopening the Time to File an Appeal.
“The district court may reopen the time to file an ap
peal for a period of 14 days after the date when its order
to reopen is entered, but only if all the following condi
tions are satisfied:
“(A) the motion is filed within 180 days after the
judgment or order is entered or within 7 days after the
moving party receives notice of the entry, whichever is
earlier;
“(B) the court finds that the moving party was enti
tled to notice of the entry of the judgment or order
sought to be appealed but did not receive the notice from
the district court or any party within 21 days after
entry; and

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“(C) the court finds that no party would be preju
diced.” (Emphasis added.) 1
It is undisputed that the District Court’s order in this case
purported to reopen the filing period for more than 14 days.
Thus, the question before us is whether the Court of Appeals
lacked jurisdiction to entertain an appeal filed outside the
14-day window allowed by § 2107(c) but within the longer
period granted by the District Court.
A
This Court has long held that the taking of an appeal
within the prescribed time is “mandatory and jurisdictional.”
Griggs v. Provident Consumer Discount Co., 459 U. S. 56,
61 (1982) (per curiam) (internal quotation marks omitted); 2
accord, Hohn v. United States, 524 U. S. 236, 247 (1998); Tor
1 The Rule was amended, effective December 1, 2005, to require that
notice be pursuant to Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 77(d). The substance is other
wise unchanged.
2 Griggs and several other of this Court’s decisions ultimately rely on
United States v. Robinson, 361 U. S. 220, 229 (1960), for the proposition
that the timely filing of a notice of appeal is jurisdictional. As the dissent
notes, we have recently questioned Robinson’s use of the term “jurisdic
tional.” Post, at 215–216 (opinion of Souter, J.). Even in our cases criti
cizing Robinson, however, we have noted the jurisdictional significance of
the fact that a time limit is set forth in a statute, see infra, at 210–211,
and have even pointed to § 2107 as a statute deserving of jurisdictional
treatment, infra, at 211. Additionally, because we rely on those cases in
reaching today’s holding, the dissent’s rhetoric claiming that we are ignor
ing their reasoning is unfounded.
Regardless of this Court’s past careless use of terminology, it is indisput
able that time limits for filing a notice of appeal have been treated as
jurisdictional in American law for well over a century. Consequently, the
dissent’s approach would require the repudiation of a century’s worth of
precedent and practice in American courts. Given the choice between
calling into question some dicta in our recent opinions and effectively
overruling a century’s worth of practice, we think the former option is the
only prudent course.

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res v. Oakland Scavenger Co., 487 U. S. 312, 314–315 (1988);
Browder, 434 U. S., at 264. Indeed, even prior to the crea
tion of the circuit courts of appeals, this Court regarded statu
tory limitations on the timing of appeals as limitations on its
own jurisdiction. See Scarborough v. Pargoud, 108 U. S. 567,
568 (1883) (“[T]he writ of error in this case was not brought
within the time limited by law, and we have consequently no
jurisdiction”); United States v. Curry, 6 How. 106, 113 (1848)
(“[A]s this appeal has not been prosecuted in the manner
directed, within the time limited by the acts of Congress, it
must be dismissed for want of jurisdiction”). Reflecting the
consistency of this Court’s holdings, the courts of appeals
routinely and uniformly dismiss untimely appeals for lack of
jurisdiction. See, e. g., Atkins v. Medical Dept. of Augusta
Cty. Jail, No. 06–7792, 2007 WL 1048810 (CA4, Apr. 4, 2007)
(per cur iam) (unpublished); see also 15A C. Wright,
A. Miller, & E. Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure
§ 3901, p. 6 (2d ed. 1992) (“The rule is well settled that failure
to file a timely notice of appeal defeats the jurisdiction of a
court of appeals”). In fact, the author of today’s dissent re
cently reiterated that “[t]he accepted fact is that some time
limits are jurisdictional even though expressed in a separate
statutory section from jurisdictional grants, see, e. g., . . .
§ 2107 (providing that notice of appeal in civil cases must be
filed ‘within thirty days after the entry of such judgment’).”
Barnhart v. Peabody Coal Co., 537 U. S. 149, 160, n. 6 (2003)
(majority opinion of Souter, J., joined by Stevens, Gins
burg, and Breyer, JJ., inter alios).
Although several of our recent decisions have undertaken
to clarify the distinction between claims-processing rules and
jurisdictional rules, none of them calls into question our long
standing treatment of statutory time limits for taking an ap
peal as jurisdictional. Indeed, those decisions have also rec
ognized the jurisdictional significance of the fact that a time
limitation is set forth in a statute. In Kontrick v. Ryan, 540
U. S. 443 (2004), we held that failure to comply with the time

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requirement in Federal Rule of Bankruptcy Procedure 4004
did not affect a court’s subject-matter jurisdiction. Critical
to our analysis was the fact that “[n]o statute . . . specifies
a time limit for filing a complaint objecting to the debtor’s
discharge.” 540 U. S., at 448. Rather, the filing deadlines
in the Bankruptcy Rules are “ ‘procedural rules adopted by
the Court for the orderly transaction of its business’ ” that
are “ ‘not jurisdictional.’ ” Id., at 454 (quoting Schacht v.
United States, 398 U. S. 58, 64 (1970)). Because “[o]nly Con
gress may determine a lower federal court’s subject-matter
jurisdiction,” 540 U. S., at 452 (citing U. S. Const., Art. III,
§ 1), it was improper for courts to use “the term ‘jurisdic
tional’ to describe emphatic time prescriptions in rules of
court,” 540 U. S., at 454. See also Eberhart v. United States,
546 U. S. 12 (2005) (per curiam). As a point of contrast, we
noted that § 2107 contains the type of statutory time con
straints that would limit a court’s jurisdiction. 540 U. S., at
453, and n. 8.3 Nor do Arbaugh v. Y & H Corp., 546 U. S.
500 (2006), or Scarborough v. Principi, 541 U. S. 401 (2004),
aid petitioner. In Arbaugh, the statutory limitation was an
employee-numerosity requirement, not a time limit. 546
U. S., at 505. Scarborough, which addressed the availability
of attorney’s fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act, con
cerned “a mode of relief . . . ancillary to the judgment of
a court” that already had plenary jurisdiction. 541 U. S.,
at 413.
This Court’s treatment of its certiorari jurisdiction also
demonstrates the jurisdictional distinction between court
3 At least one Federal Court of Appeals has noted that Kontrick and
Eberhart “called . . . into question” the “longstanding assumption” that
the timely filing of a notice of appeal is a jurisdictional requirement.
United States v. Sadler, 480 F. 3d 932, 935 (CA9 2007). That court none
theless found that “[t]he distinction between jurisdictional rules and in
flexible but not jurisdictional timeliness rules drawn by Eberhart and
Kontrick turns largely on whether the timeliness requirement is or is not
grounded in a statute.” Id., at 936.

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promulgated rules and limits enacted by Congress. Accord
ing to our Rules, a petition for a writ of certiorari must be
filed within 90 days of the entry of the judgment sought to be
reviewed. See this Court’s Rule 13.1. That 90-day period
applies to both civil and criminal cases. But the 90-day pe
riod for civil cases derives from both this Court’s Rule 13.1
and 28 U. S. C. § 2101(c). We have repeatedly held that this
statute-based filing period for civil cases is jurisdictional.
See, e. g., Federal Election Comm’n v. NRA Political Vic
tory Fund, 513 U. S. 88, 90 (1994). Indeed, this Court’s Rule
13.2 cites § 2101(c) in directing the Clerk not to file any
petition “that is jurisdictionally out of time.” (Emphasis
added.) On the other hand, we have treated the rule-based
time limit for criminal cases differently, stating that it may
be waived because “[t]he procedural rules adopted by the
Court for the orderly transaction of its business are not ju
risdictional and can be relaxed by the Court in the exercise
of its discretion . . . .” Schacht, supra, at 64.4
Jurisdictional treatment of statutory time limits makes
good sense. Within constitutional bounds, Congress decides
what cases the federal courts have jurisdiction to consider.
Because Congress decides whether federal courts can hear
4 The dissent minimizes this argument, stating that the Court under
stood § 2101(c) as jurisdictional “in the days when we used the term impre
cisely.” Post, at 218, n. 4. The dissent’s apathy is surprising because if
our treatment of our own jurisdiction is simply a relic of the old days, it
is a relic with severe consequences. Just a few months ago, the Clerk,
pursuant to this Court’s Rule 13.2, refused to accept a petition for certio
rari submitted by Ryan Heath Dickson because it had been filed one day
late. In the letter sent to Dickson’s counsel, the Clerk explained that
“[w]hen the time to file a petition for a writ of certiorari in a civil case . . .
has expired, the Court no longer has the power to review the petition.”
Letter from William K. Suter, Clerk of Court, to Ronald T. Spriggs (Dec.
28, 2006). Dickson was executed on April 26, 2007, without any Member
of this Court having even seen his petition for certiorari. The rejected
certiorari petition was Dickson’s first in this Court, and one can only spec
ulate as to whether denial of that petition would have been a foregone
conclusion.

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cases at all, it can also determine when, and under what con
ditions, federal courts can hear them. See Curry, 6 How.,
at 113. Put another way, the notion of “ ‘subject-matter’ ”
jurisdiction obviously extends to “ ‘classes of cases . . . falling
within a court’s adjudicatory authority,’ ” Eberhart, supra,
at 16 (quoting Kontrick, supra, at 455), but it is no less
“jurisdictional” when Congress prohibits federal courts from
adjudicating an otherwise legitimate “class of cases” after a
certain period has elapsed from final judgment.
The resolution of this case follows naturally from this rea
soning. Like the initial 30-day period for filing a notice of
appeal, the limit on how long a district court may reopen that
period is set forth in a statute, 28 U. S. C. § 2107(c). Because
Congress specifically limited the amount of time by which
district courts can extend the notice-of-appeal period in
§ 2107(c), that limitation is more than a simple “claim
processing rule.” As we have long held, when an “appeal
has not been prosecuted in the manner directed, within the
time limited by the acts of Congress, it must be dismissed
for want of jurisdiction.” Curry, supra, at 113. Bowles’
failure to file his notice of appeal in accordance with the stat
ute therefore deprived the Court of Appeals of jurisdiction.
And because Bowles’ error is one of jurisdictional magnitude,
he cannot rely on forfeiture or waiver to excuse his lack
of compliance with the statute’s time limitations. See Ar
baugh, supra, at 513–514.
B
Bowles contends that we should excuse his untimely filing
because he satisfies the “unique circumstances” doctrine,
which has its roots in Harris Truck Lines, Inc. v. Cherry
Meat Packers, Inc., 371 U. S. 215 (1962) (per curiam).
There, pursuant to then-Rule 73(a) of the Federal Rules of
Civil Procedure, a District Court entertained a timely mo
tion to extend the time for filing a notice of appeal. The
District Court found the moving party had established a
showing of “excusable neglect,” as required by the Rule, and

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granted the motion. The Court of Appeals reversed the
finding of excusable neglect and, accordingly, held that the
District Court lacked jurisdiction to grant the extension.
Harris Truck Lines, Inc. v. Cherry Meat Packers, Inc., 303
F. 2d 609, 611–612 (CA7 1962). This Court reversed, not
ing “the obvious great hardship to a party who relies upon
the trial judge’s finding of ‘excusable neglect.’ ” 371 U. S.,
at 217.
Today we make clear that the timely filing of a notice of
appeal in a civil case is a jurisdictional requirement. Be
cause this Court has no authority to create equitable excep
tions to jurisdictional requirements, use of the “unique cir
cumstances” doctrine is illegitimate. Given that this Court
has applied Harris Truck Lines only once in the last half
century, Thompson v. INS, 375 U. S. 384 (1964) (per curiam),
several courts have rightly questioned its continuing validity.
See, e. g., Panhorst v. United States, 241 F. 3d 367, 371 (CA4
2001) (doubting “the continued viability of the unique circum
stances doctrine”). See also Houston v. Lack, 487 U. S. 266,
282 (1988) (Scalia, J., dissenting) (“Our later cases . . . effec
tively repudiate the Harris Truck Lines approach . . . ”);
Osterneck v. Ernst & Whinney, 489 U. S. 169, 170 (1989) (re
ferring to “the so-called ‘unique circumstances’ exception” to
the timely appeal requirement). We see no compelling rea
son to resurrect the doctrine from its 40-year slumber. Ac
cordingly, we reject Bowles’ reliance on the doctrine, and we
overrule Harris Truck Lines and Thompson to the extent
they purport to authorize an exception to a jurisdictional
rule.
C
If rigorous rules like the one applied today are thought to
be inequitable, Congress may authorize courts to promulgate
rules that excuse compliance with the statutory time limits.
Even narrow rules to this effect would give rise to litigation
testing their reach and would no doubt detract from the clar
ity of the rule. However, congressionally authorized rule

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Souter, J., dissenting
making would likely lead to less litigation than court-created
exceptions without authorization. And in all events, for the
reasons discussed above, we lack present authority to make
the exception petitioner seeks.
III
The Court of Appeals correctly held that it lacked jurisdic
tion to consider Bowles’ appeal. The judgment of the Court
of Appeals is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
Justice Souter, with whom Justice Stevens, Justice
Ginsburg, and Justice Breyer join, dissenting.
The District Court told petitioner Keith Bowles that his
notice of appeal was due on February 27, 2004. He filed a
notice of appeal on February 26, only to be told that he was
too late because his deadline had actually been February 24.
It is intolerable for the judicial system to treat people this
way, and there is not even a technical justification for condon
ing this bait and switch. I respectfully dissent.
I
“ ‘Jurisdiction,’ ” we have warned several times in the last
decade, “ ‘is a word of many, too many, meanings.’ ” Steel
Co. v. Citizens for Better Environment, 523 U. S. 83, 90
(1998) (quoting United States v. Vanness, 85 F. 3d 661, 663,
n. 2 (CADC 1996)); Kontrick v. Ryan, 540 U. S. 443, 454
(2004) (quoting Steel Co.); Arbaugh v. Y & H Corp., 546 U. S.
500, 510 (2006) (same); Rockwell Int’l Corp. v. United States,
549 U. S. 457, 467 (2007) (same). This variety of meaning
has insidiously tempted courts, this one included, to engage
in “less than meticulous,” Kontrick, supra, at 454, some
times even “profligate . . . use of the term,” Arbaugh,
supra, at 510.
In recent years, however, we have tried to clean up our
language, and until today we have been avoiding the errone

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ous jurisdictional conclusions that flow from indiscriminate
use of the ambiguous word. Thus, although we used to call
the sort of time limit at issue here “mandatory and jurisdic
tional,” United States v. Robinson, 361 U. S. 220, 229 (1960),
we have recently and repeatedly corrected that designation
as a misuse of the “jurisdiction” label, Arbaugh, supra, at
510 (citing Robinson as an example of improper use of the
term “jurisdiction”); Eberhart v. United States, 546 U. S. 12,
17–18 (2005) (per curiam) (same); Kontrick, supra, at 454
(same).
But one would never guess this from reading the Court’s
opinion in this case, which suddenly restores Robinson’s in
discriminate use of the “mandatory and jurisdictional” label
to good law in the face of three unanimous repudiations of
Robinson’s error. See ante, at 209. This is puzzling, the
more so because our recent (and, I repeat, unanimous) efforts
to confine jurisdictional rulings to jurisdiction proper were
obviously sound, and the majority makes no attempt to show
they were not.1
The stakes are high in treating time limits as jurisdic
tional. While a mandatory but nonjurisdictional limit is en
forceable at the insistence of a party claiming its benefit or
by a judge concerned with moving the docket, it may be
waived or mitigated in exercising reasonable equitable dis
cretion. But if a limit is taken to be jurisdictional, waiver
becomes impossible, meritorious excuse irrelevant (unless
the statute so provides), and sua sponte consideration in the
1 The Court thinks my fellow dissenters and I are forgetful of an opinion
I wrote and the others joined in 2003, which referred to the 30-day rule
of 28 U. S. C. § 2107(a) as a jurisdictional time limit. See ante, at 210
(quoting Barnhart v. Peabody Coal Co., 537 U. S. 149, 160, n. 6 (2003)).
But that reference in Barnhart was a perfect example of the confusion of
the mandatory and the jurisdictional that the entire Court has spent the
past four years repudiating in Arbaugh, Eberhart, and Kontrick. My fel
low dissenters and I believe that the Court was right to correct its course;
the majority, however, will not even admit that we deliberately changed
course, let alone explain why it is now changing course again.

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courts of appeals mandatory, see Arbaugh, supra, at 514.2
As the Court recognizes, ante, at 210–211, this is no way to
regard time limits set out in a court rule rather than a stat
ute, see Kontrick, supra, at 452 (“Only Congress may deter
mine a lower federal court’s subject-matter jurisdiction”).
But neither is jurisdictional treatment automatic when a
time limit is statutory, as it is in this case. Generally speak
ing, limits on the reach of federal statutes, even nontemporal
ones, are only jurisdictional if Congress says so: “when Con
gress does not rank a statutory limitation on coverage as
jurisdictional, courts should treat the restriction as nonjuris
dictional in character.” Arbaugh, 546 U. S., at 516. Thus,
we have held “that time prescriptions, however emphatic,
‘are not properly typed “jurisdictional,” ’ ” id., at 510 (quoting
Scarborough v. Principi, 541 U. S. 401, 414 (2004)), absent
some jurisdictional designation by Congress. Congress put
no jurisdictional tag on the time limit here.3
2 The requirement that courts of appeals raise jurisdictional issues
sua sponte reveals further ill effects of today’s decision. Under § 2107(c),
“[t]he district court may . . . extend the time for appeal upon a showing of
excusable neglect or good cause.” By the Court’s logic, if a district court
grants such an extension, the extension’s propriety is subject to manda
tory sua sponte review in the court of appeals, even if the extension was
unopposed throughout, and upon finding error the court of appeals must
dismiss the appeal. I see no more justification for such a rule than reason
to suspect Congress meant to create it.
3 The majority answers that a footnote of our unanimous opinion in Kon
trick v. Ryan, 540 U. S. 443 (2004), used § 2107(a) as an illustration of a
jurisdictional time limit. Ante, at 211 (“[W]e noted that § 2107 contains
the type of statutory time constraints that would limit a court’s jurisdic
tion. 540 U. S., at 453, and n. 8”). What the majority overlooks, how
ever, are the post-Kontrick cases showing that § 2107(a) can no longer be
seen as an example of a jurisdictional time limit. The jurisdictional char
acter of the 30- (or 60)-day time limit for filing notices of appeal under the
present § 2107(a) was first pronounced by this Court in Browder v. Direc
tor, Dept. of Corrections of Ill., 434 U. S. 257 (1978). But in that respect
Browder was undercut by Eberhart v. United States, 546 U. S. 12 (2005)
(per curiam), decided after Kontrick. Eberhart cited Browder (along
with several of the other cases on which the Court now relies) as an exam

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218 BOWLES v. RUSSELL
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The doctrinal underpinning of this recently repeated view
was set out in Kontrick: “the label ‘jurisdictional’ [is appro
priate] not for claim-processing rules, but only for prescrip
tions delineating the classes of cases (subject-matter juris
diction) and the persons (personal jurisdiction) falling within
a court’s adjudicatory authority.” 540 U. S., at 455. A filing
deadline is the paradigm of a claim-processing rule, not of a
delineation of cases that federal courts may hear, and so it
falls outside the class of limitations on subject-matter juris
diction unless Congress says otherwise.4
The time limit at issue here, far from defining the set of
cases that may be adjudicated, is much more like a statute
of limitations, which provides an affirmative defense, see
Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 8(c), and is not jurisdictional, Day v.
ple of the basic error of confusing mandatory time limits with jurisdic
tional limitations, a confusion for which United States v. Robinson, 361
U. S. 220 (1960), was responsible. Compare ante, at 209–210 (citing
Browder, Griggs v. Provident Consumer Discount Co., 459 U. S. 56 (1982)
(per curiam), and Hohn v. United States, 524 U. S. 236 (1998)), with Eber
hart, supra, at 17–18 (citing those cases as examples of the confusion
caused by Robinson’s imprecise language). Eberhart was followed four
months later by Arbaugh v. Y & H Corp., 546 U. S. 500 (2006), which
summarized the body of recent decisions in which the Court “clarified that
time prescriptions, however emphatic, are not properly typed jurisdic
tional,” id., at 510 (internal quotation marks omitted). This unanimous
statement of all Members of the Court participating in the case eliminated
the option of continuing to accept § 2107(a) as jurisdictional and it pre
cludes treating the 14-day period of § 2107(c) as a limit on jurisdiction.
4 The Court points out that we have affixed a “jurisdiction” label to the
time limit contained in § 2101(c) for petitions for writ of certiorari in civil
cases. Ante, at 212 (citing Federal Election Comm’n v. NRA Political
Victory Fund, 513 U. S. 88, 90 (1994); this Court’s Rule 13.2). Of course,
we initially did so in the days when we used the term imprecisely. The
status of § 2101(c) is not before the Court in this case, so I express no
opinion on whether there are sufficient reasons to treat it as jurisdictional.
The Court’s observation that jurisdictional treatment has had severe con
sequences in that context, ante, at 212, n. 4, does nothing to support an
argument that jurisdictional treatment is sound, but instead merely shows
that the certiorari rule, too, should be reconsidered in light of our recent
clarifications of what sorts of rules should be treated as jurisdictional.

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McDonough, 547 U. S. 198, 205 (2006). Statutes of limita
tions may thus be waived, id., at 207–208, or excused by
rules, such as equitable tolling, that alleviate hardship and
unfairness, see Irwin v. Department of Veterans Affairs, 498
U. S. 89, 95–96 (1990).
Consistent with the traditional view of statutes of limita
tions, and the carefully limited concept of jurisdiction ex
plained in Arbaugh, Eberhart, and Kontrick, an exception to
the time limit in 28 U. S. C. § 2107(c) should be available when
there is a good justification for one, for reasons we recog
nized years ago. In Harris Truck Lines, Inc. v. Cherry
Meat Packers, Inc., 371 U. S. 215, 217 (1962) (per curiam),
and Thompson v. INS, 375 U. S. 384, 387 (1964) (per curiam),
we found that “unique circumstances” excused failures to
comply with the time limit. In fact, much like this case,
Harris and Thompson involved District Court errors that
misled litigants into believing they had more time to file no
tices of appeal than a statute actually provided. Thus, even
back when we thoughtlessly called time limits jurisdictional,
we did not actually treat them as beyond exemption to the
point of shrugging at the inequity of penalizing a party for
relying on what a federal judge had said to him. Since we
did not dishonor reasonable reliance on a judge’s official word
back in the days when we uncritically had a jurisdictional
reason to be unfair, it is unsupportable to dishonor it now,
after repeatedly disavowing any such jurisdictional justifi
cation that would apply to the 14-day time limit of § 2107(c).
The majority avoids clashing with Harris and Thompson
by overruling them on the ground of their “slumber,” ante,
at 214, and inconsistency with a time-limit-as-jurisdictional
rule.5 But eliminating those precedents underscores what
5 With no apparent sense of irony, the Court finds that “ ‘[o]ur later
cases . . . effectively repudiate the Harris Truck Lines approach.’ ” Ante,
at 214 (quoting Houston v. Lack, 487 U. S. 266, 282 (1988) (Scalia, J., dissent
ing); omission in original). Of course, those “later cases” were Browder
and Griggs, see Houston, supra, at 282, which have themselves been repu
diated, not just “effectively” but explicitly, in Eberhart. See n. 3, supra.

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220 BOWLES v. RUSSELL
Souter, J., dissenting
has become the principal question of this case: why does to
day’s majority refuse to come to terms with the steady
stream of unanimous statements from this Court in the past
four years, culminating in Arbaugh’s summary a year ago?
The majority begs this question by refusing to confront what
we have said: “in recent decisions, we have clarified that time
prescriptions, however emphatic, ‘are not properly typed
“jurisdictional.” ’ ” Arbaugh, 546 U. S., at 510 (quoting Scar
borough, 541 U. S., at 414). This statement of the Court,
and those preceding it for which it stands as a summation,
cannot be dismissed as “some dicta,” ante, at 209, n. 2, and
cannot be ignored on the ground that some of them were
made in cases where the challenged restriction was not a
time limit, see ante, at 211. By its refusal to come to grips
with our considered statements of law the majority leaves
the Court incoherent.
In ruling that Bowles cannot depend on the word of a Dis
trict Court Judge, the Court demonstrates that no one may
depend on the recent, repeated, and unanimous statements
of all participating Justices of this Court. Yet more incon
gruously, all of these pronouncements by the Court, along
with two of our cases,6 are jettisoned in a ruling for which
the leading justification is stare decisis, see ante, at 209
(“This Court has long held . . . ”).
II
We have the authority to recognize an equitable exception
to the 14-day limit, and we should do that here, as it certainly
seems reasonable to rely on an order from a federal judge.7
6 Three, if we include Wolfsohn v. Hankin, 376 U. S. 203 (1964) (per
curiam).
7 As a member of the Federal Judiciary, I cannot help but think that
reliance on our orders is reasonable. See O. Holmes, Natural Law, in
Collected Legal Papers 311 (1920). I would also rest better knowing that
my innocent errors will not jeopardize anyone’s rights unless absolutely
necessary.

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Souter, J., dissenting
Bowles, though, does not have to convince us as a matter of
first impression that his reliance was justified, for we only
have to look as far as Thompson to know that he ought to
prevail. There, the would-be appellant, Thompson, had filed
post-trial motions 12 days after the District Court’s final
order. Although the rules said they should have been filed
within 10, Fed. Rules Civ. Proc. 52(b) and 59(b) (1964 ed.),
the trial court nonetheless had “specifically declared that the
‘motion for a new trial’ was made ‘in ample time.’ ” Thomp
son, supra, at 385. Thompson relied on that statement in
filing a notice of appeal within 60 days of the denial of the
post-trial motions but not within 60 days of entry of the orig
inal judgment. Only timely post-trial motions affected the
60-day time limit for filing a notice of appeal, Rule 73(a) (1964
ed.), so the Court of Appeals held the appeal untimely. We
vacated because Thompson “relied on the statement of the
District Court and filed the appeal within the assumedly new
deadline but beyond the old deadline.” 375 U. S., at 387.
Thompson should control. In that case, and this one, the
untimely filing of a notice of appeal resulted from reliance on
an error by a District Court, an error that caused no evident
prejudice to the other party. Actually, there is one differ
ence between Thompson and this case: Thompson filed his
post-trial motions late, and the District Court was mistaken
when it said they were timely; here, the District Court made
the error out of the blue, not on top of any mistake by
Bowles, who then filed his notice of appeal by the specific
date the District Court had declared timely. If anything,
this distinction ought to work in Bowles’s favor. Why
should we have rewarded Thompson, who introduced the
error, but now punish Bowles, who merely trusted the Dis
trict Court’s statement? 8
8 Nothing in Osterneck v. Ernst & Whinney, 489 U. S. 169 (1989), re
quires such a strange rule. In Osterneck, we described the “unique cir
cumstances” doctrine as applicable “only where a party has performed an
act which, if properly done, would postpone the deadline for filing his

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Under Thompson, it would be no answer to say that
Bowles’s trust was unreasonable because the 14-day limit
was clear and counsel should have checked the judge’s arith
metic. The 10-day limit on post-trial motions was no less
pellucid in Thompson, which came out the other way. And
what is more, counsel here could not have uncovered the
court’s error simply by counting off the days on a calendar.
Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(a)(6) allows a party
to file a notice of appeal within 14 days of “the date when
[the district court’s] order to reopen is entered.” See also
28 U. S. C. § 2107(c)(2) (allowing reopening for “14 days from
the date of entry”). The District Court’s order was dated
February 10, 2004, which reveals the date the judge signed it
but not necessarily the date on which the order was entered.
Bowles’s lawyer therefore could not tell from reading the
order, which he received by mail, whether it was entered the
day it was signed. Nor is the possibility of delayed entry
merely theoretical: the District Court’s original judgment in
this case, dated July 10, 2003, was not entered until July 28.
See App. 11 (District Court docket). According to Bowles’s
lawyer, electronic access to the docket was unavailable at the
time, so to learn when the order was actually entered he
would have had to call or go to the courthouse and check.
See Tr. of Oral Arg. 56–57. Surely this is more than equity
demands, and unless every statement by a federal court is to
be tagged with the warning “Beware of the Judge,” Bowles’s
appeal and has received specific assurance by a judicial officer that this
act has been properly done.” Id., at 179. But the point we were making
was that Thompson could not excuse a lawyer’s original mistake in a case
in which a judge had not assured him that his act had been timely; the
Court of Appeals in Osterneck had found that no court provided a specific
assurance, and we agreed. I see no reason to take Osterneck’s language
out of context to buttress a fundamentally unfair resolution of an issue the
Osterneck Court did not have in front of it. Cf. St. Mary’s Honor Center
v. Hicks, 509 U. S. 502, 515 (1993) (“[W]e think it generally undesirable,
where holdings of the Court are not at issue, to dissect the sentences of
the United States Reports as though they were the United States Code”).

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lawyer had no obligation to go behind the terms of the order
he received.
I have to admit that Bowles’s counsel probably did not
think the order might have been entered on a different day
from the day it was signed. He probably just trusted that
the date given was correct, and there was nothing unreason
able in so trusting. The other side let the order pass with
out objection, either not caring enough to make a fuss or not
even noticing the discrepancy; the mistake of a few days was
probably not enough to ring the alarm bell to send either
lawyer to his copy of the Federal Rules and then off to the
courthouse to check the docket.9 This would be a different
case if the year were wrong on the District Court’s order, or
if opposing counsel had flagged the error. But on the actual
facts, it was reasonable to rely on a facially plausible date
provided by a federal judge.
I would vacate the decision of the Court of Appeals and
remand for consideration of the merits.
9 At first glance it may seem unreasonable for counsel to wait until the
penultimate day under the judge’s order, filing a notice of appeal being so
easy that counsel should not have needed the extra time. But as Bowles’s
lawyer pointed out at oral argument, filing the notice of appeal starts the
clock for filing the record, see Fed. Rules App. Proc. 6(b)(2)(B), 10(b), and
11, which in turn starts the clock for filing a brief, see Rule 31(a)(1), for
which counsel might reasonably want as much time as possible. See Tr. of
Oral Arg. 6. A good lawyer plans ahead, and Bowles had a good lawyer.