Keene Corp. v. United States, 508 U.S. 200, 18 (1993)

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

Opinion of the Court

missed on the ground of falling within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Court of Federal Claims, Keene gets no support from Brown and Hossein.12 Thus, there is no "new principle of law" at work in ruling against Keene, see Chevron Oil, supra, at 106, and no need to plunge into retroactivity analysis.13

IV

We have said nothing until now about Keene's several policy arguments, and now can only answer that Keene addresses the wrong forum. It may well be, as Keene argues, that § 1500 operates in some circumstances to deprive plaintiffs of an opportunity to assert rights that Congress has generally made available to them "under the complex legal and jurisdictional schemes that govern claims against the Government." Brief for Petitioner 15. The trial judge in this case was not the first to call this statute anachronistic, see 12 Cl. Ct., at 205; A. C. Seeman, Inc. v. United States, 5 Cl. Ct. 386, 389 (1984), and there is a good argument that, even when first enacted, the statute did not actually perform the preclusion function emphasized by its sponsor, see Schwartz, 55 Geo. L. J., at 579. But the "proper theater" for such arguments, as we told another disappointed claimant many years ago, "is the halls of Congress, for that branch of the government has limited the jurisdiction of the Court of Claims." 14 Smoot's Case, 15 Wall. 36, 45 (1873). We enjoy no "liberty to add an exception . . . to remove

12 Brown and Hossein do not survive our ruling today, for they ignored the time-of-filing rule discussed in Part II-A, supra.

13 Keene also asks the Court to "make clear that, if Keene refiles the same claims, equitable tolling would be available to eliminate any limitations bar." Brief for Petitioner 45. But any response to this request would be an advisory opinion.

14 A recent attempt to repeal § 1500 failed in Congress. See S. 2521, 102d Cong., 2d Sess., § 10(c) (1992); 138 Cong. Rec. S4830-S4832 (Apr. 2, 1992).

217

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