Keene Corp. v. United States, 508 U.S. 200, 10 (1993)

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Cite as: 508 U. S. 200 (1993)

Opinion of the Court

claim when a related suit is pending); British American Tobacco Co. v. United States, 89 Ct. Cl. 438, 439 (1939) (per curiam) (dismissing a claim under § 154 where, "[a]t the time the petition was filed in this court, the plaintiff . . . had pending in the District Court . . . a suit based upon the same claim"), cert. denied, 310 U. S. 627 (1940); New Jersey Worsted Mills v. United States, 80 Ct. Cl. 640, 641, 9 F. Supp. 605, 606 (1935) (per curiam) ("[W]e think it clear that the plaintiff was not permitted even to file its claim in this court"). Although Keene urges us to see significance in the deletion of the "file or prosecute" language in favor of the current reference to "jurisdiction" in the comprehensive revision of the Judicial Code completed in 1948, we do not presume that the revision worked a change in the underlying substantive law "unless an intent to make such [a] chang[e] is clearly expressed." Fourco Glass Co. v. Transmirra Products Corp., 353 U. S. 222, 227 (1957) (footnote omitted); see Newman-Green, Inc. v. Alfonzo-Larrain, 490 U. S. 826, 831, n. 4 (1989); Finley v. United States, supra, at 554; Tidewater Oil Co. v. United States, 409 U. S. 151, 162 (1972). On the point in issue here, there is no such clear expression in the shift from specific language to the general, and the Reviser's Note to § 1500 indicates nothing more than a change "in phraseology," see H. R. Rep. No. 308, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., A140 (1947); cf. Newman-Green, supra, at 831. Since Keene, indeed, comes up with nothing to the contrary, we read the statute as continuing to bar jurisdiction over the claim of a plaintiff who, upon filing, has an action pending in any other court "for or in respect to" the same claim.4

4 We do not decide whether the statute also continues to bar a plaintiff from prosecuting a claim in the Court of Federal Claims while he has pending a later-filed suit in another court "for or in respect to" the same claim. Cf. Tecon Engineers, Inc. v. United States, 170 Ct. Cl. 389, 343 F. 2d 943 (1965), cert. denied, 382 U. S. 976 (1966). As the dissenting judge noted below, this case does not raise that issue. UNR Industries,

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