Cite as: 508 U. S. 200 (1993)
Opinion of the Court
with minor changes into § 1067 of the Revised Statutes of 1878; then reenacted without further change as § 154 of the Judicial Code of 1911, Act of Mar. 3, 1911, ch. 231, § 154, 36 Stat. 1138, 28 U. S. C. § 260 (1940 ed.); and finally adopted in its present form by the Act of June 25, 1948, ch. 646, 62 Stat. 942, 28 U. S. C. § 1500.
Keene argues it was error for the courts below to apply the statute by focusing on facts as of the time Keene filed its complaints (instead of the time of the trial court's ruling on the motion to dismiss) and to ignore differences said to exist between the Court of Federal Claims actions and those filed in the District Courts. Neither assignment of error will stand.
A
Congress has the constitutional authority to define the jurisdiction of the lower federal courts, see Finley v. United States, 490 U. S. 545, 548 (1989), and, once the lines are drawn, "limits upon federal jurisdiction . . . must be neither disregarded nor evaded," Owen Equipment & Erection Co. v. Kroger, 437 U. S. 365, 374 (1978). In § 1500, Congress has employed its power to provide that the Court of Federal Claims "shall not have jurisdiction" over a claim, "for or in respect to which" the plaintiff "has [a suit or process] pending" in any other court. In applying the jurisdictional bar here by looking to the facts existing when Keene filed each of its complaints, the Court of Federal Claims followed the longstanding principle that "the jurisdiction of the Court depends upon the state of things at the time of the action brought." Mollan v. Torrance, 9 Wheat. 537, 539 (1824) (Marshall, C. J.); see Gwaltney of Smithfield, Ltd. v. Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Inc., 484 U. S. 49, 69 (1987) (opinion of Scalia, J.); St. Paul Mercury Indemnity Co. v. Red Cab Co., 303 U. S. 283, 289-290 (1938); Minneapolis & St. Louis R. Co. v. Peoria & P. U. R. Co., 270 U. S. 580, 586 (1926). While acknowledging what it calls this "general rule" that
subject-matter jurisdiction turns on the facts upon filing,
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