Cite as: 517 U. S. 654 (1996)
Opinion of the Court
Cf. 28 U. S. C. § 1404 (change of venue to more convenient forum); § 1406 (authorizing transfer, rather than dismissal, when venue is improperly laid). Congress simultaneously added to the Suits in Admiralty Act, the Public Vessels Act, and the Federal Tort Claims Act the transfer provision just set out so that "jurisdictional" dismissals could be avoided when plaintiffs commenced suit under the wrong statute. See S. Rep. No. 1894, 86th Cong., 2d Sess., pp. 2-5 (1960); cf. 28 U. S. C. § 1631 (authorizing transfer, inter alia, when review of agency action is sought in the wrong federal court). In short, far from reining in "jurisdiction," § 742's venue and transfer provisions afford plaintiffs multiple forum choices and spare plaintiffs from dismissal for suing in the wrong place or under the wrong Act.12
Section 742's critical sentence on service reads:
"The libelant [plaintiff] shall forthwith serve a copy of his libel [complaint] on the United States attorney for such district and mail a copy thereof by registered mail to the Attorney General . . . ."
Rule 4, as observed at oral argument, see Tr. of Oral Arg. 27-28, provides for dispatch of the summons and complaint to the Attorney General "by registered or certified mail." See supra, at 658, and n. 4. The Government's sovereign-immunity waiver, counsel for the United States agreed, did not depend on registered mail service, the sole form of mailing § 742 authorizes; "in this day and age," counsel said, "certified mail would be acceptable." Tr. of Oral Arg. 28-29. But see post, at 678, n. 4 ("jurisdiction in [a Suits in Admiralty Act] suit may turn upon the plaintiff's use of registered mail"). It thus appears that several of § 742's provisions are not sensibly typed "substantive" or "jurisdictional." Instead, they have a distinctly facilitative, "procedural" cast.
12 While striving for fidelity to what Congress wrote, see post, at 674, 679, the dissent inexplicably writes off many of § 742's words as "largely beside the point," post, at 674.
667
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