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where the Supreme Court refused to apply a State statute of
limitations to cut off the Government’s existing cause of action.
Rather, the Summerlin doctrine is inapposite to these
circumstances.
B. The Supreme Court
The Supreme Court has held that temporal limitations contained
in State statutory rights are not statutes of limitations that are
subject to the rule of quod nullum tempus occurrit regi. See
Custer v. McCutcheon, 283 U.S. 514 (1931). In Custer, the Supreme
Court reversed the decision of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth
Circuit (Ninth Circuit) affirming a judgment of the District Court
for Idaho in favor of a U.S. marshal. The marshal had levied an
execution against Custer upon a judgment entered in favor of the
United States 9 years earlier. The Idaho statute governing the
execution process, which applied to proceedings in the District
Court as if Congress had enacted the statute, provided that "[t]he
party in whose favor judgment is given, may, at any time within
five years after the entry thereof, have a writ of execution issued
for its enforcement." Id. at 515. The Supreme Court, recognizing
that absent specific provisions to the contrary, statutes of
limitations do not bind the sovereign, held that the statute was
not a statute of limitations. Rather, the Court held that it was
a statute granting a right of execution, and the time element is an
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