Supreme Court allows North Dakota truck stop to sue Federal Reserve

The Supreme Court on Monday revived a lawsuit by a North Dakota truck stop that sought to block the fees that banks can charge for debit card transactions in a ruling that could have tremendous implications for other government regulations.

The 6-3 decision by Justice Amy Coney Barrett makes it easier for businesses to challenge federal regulations. Arguments in the case, Corner Post Inc. v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, concerned whether the store was too late to bring its 2021 lawsuit challenging the Federal Reserve regulation that governs how much businesses pay to banks when customers use debit cards to make purchases.

The broader crux of the case was the question of whether litigants who are suffering from an alleged legal wrong due to an agency action are “entitled to judicial review thereof” under the Administrative Procedure Act.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh concurred with Barrett’s majority opinion, saying, “Corner Post can obtain relief in this case only because the APA authorizes vacatur of agency rules.”

All three Democratic-appointed justices on the high court, Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented.

The Biden administration’s Justice Department argued that Corner Post missed its chance to challenge the 2011 Federal Reserve regulation because the six-year statute of limitations ended.

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Jackson’s dissent argued that the majority “throws caution to the wind” with its sweeping decision.

“Today, the majority throws that caution to the wind and engages in the same kind of misguided reasoning about statutory limitations periods that we have previously admonished,” Jackson wrote. “The flawed reasoning and far-reaching results of the Court’s ruling in this case are staggering.”

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