476
Opinion of the Court
§ 1346(b).4 In order to "place torts of 'suable' agencies . . . upon precisely the same footing as torts of 'nonsuable' agencies," Loeffler, supra, at 562 (internal quotation marks omitted), Congress, through the FTCA, limited the scope of sueand-be-sued waivers such as that contained in FSLIC's organic statute. The FTCA limitation provides:
"The authority of any federal agency to sue and be sued in its own name shall not be construed to authorize suits against such federal agency on claims which are cognizable under section 1346(b) of this title, and the remedies provided by this title in such cases shall be exclusive." 28 U. S. C. § 2679(a).
Thus, if a suit is "cognizable" under § 1346(b) of the FTCA, the FTCA remedy is "exclusive" and the federal agency cannot be sued "in its own name," despite the existence of a sue-and-be-sued clause.
The first question, then, is whether Meyer's claim is "cognizable" under § 1346(b). The term "cognizable" is not defined in the Act. In the absence of such a definition, we construe a statutory term in accordance with its ordinary or natural meaning. Smith v. United States, 508 U. S. 223, 228 (1993). Cognizable ordinarily means "[c]apable of being tried or examined before a designated tribunal; within [the] jurisdiction of [a] court or power given to [a] court to adjudicate [a] controversy." Black's Law Dictionary 259 (6th ed. 1990). Under this definition, the inquiry focuses on the jurisdictional grant provided by § 1346(b).
4 Section 1346(b) provides: "[T]he district courts . . . shall have exclusive jurisdiction of civil actions on claims against the United States, for money damages, . . . for injury or loss of property, or personal injury or death caused by the negligent or wrongful act or omission of any employee of the Government while acting within the scope of his office or employment, under circumstances where the United States, if a private person, would be liable to the claimant in accordance with the law of the place where the act or omission occurred."
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