Cite as: 523 U. S. 410 (1998)
Opinion of the Court
courts,5 we granted certiorari, 522 U. S. 912 (1997), to determine whether under federal law the statutory right of rescission provided by § 1635 may be revived as an affirmative defense after its expiration under § 1635(f). We affirm.
II
The Beaches concede that any right they may have had to institute an independent proceeding for rescission under § 1635 lapsed in 1989, three years after they closed the loan with the bank, but they argue that the restriction to three years in § 1635(f) is a statute of limitation governing only the institution of suit and accordingly has no effect when a borrower claims a § 1635 right of rescission as a "defense in recoupment" to a collection action. They are, of course, correct that as a general matter a defendant's right to plead "recoupment," a " 'defense arising out of some feature of the transaction upon which the plaintiff's action is grounded,' " Rothensies v. Electric Storage Battery Co., 329 U. S. 296, 299 (1946) (quoting Bull v. United States, 295 U. S. 247, 262 (1935)), survives the expiration of the period provided by a statute of limitation that would otherwise bar the recoupment claim as an independent cause of action. So long as the plaintiff's action is timely, see ibid., a defendant may raise a claim in recoupment even if he could no longer bring it independently, absent " 'the clearest congressional language' " to the contrary. Reiter v. Cooper, 507 U. S. 258, 264 (1993) (quoting United States v. Western Pacific R. Co., 352 U. S. 59, 71 (1956)). As we have said before, the object of a statute of limitation in keeping "stale litigation out of the courts," id., at 72, would be distorted if the statute were
5 See, e. g., In re Barsky, 210 B. R. 683 (Bkrtcy. Ct. ED Pa. 1997); In re Botelho, 195 B. R. 558 (Bkrtcy. Ct. Mass. 1996); In re Shaw, 178 B. R. 380 (Bkrtcy. Ct. NJ 1994); Federal Deposit Ins. Corp. v. Ablin, 177 Ill. App. 3d 390, 532 N. E. 2d 379 (1988); Community Nat. Bank & Trust Co. of N. Y. v. McClammy, 525 N. Y. S. 2d 629, 138 App. Div. 2d 339 (1988); Dawe v. Merchants Mortgage and Trust Corp., 683 P. 2d 796 (Colo. 1984) (en banc).
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