Cite as: 525 U. S. 255 (1999)
Opinion of the Court
On cross-motions for summary judgment, the District Court held that the waiver of sovereign immunity provided by the APA did not apply to respondent's claim against the Army. The District Court thus concluded that it did not have jurisdiction over respondent's claim and accordingly granted the Army's motion for summary judgment. In a split decision, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed in relevant part. See Blue Fox Inc. v. Small Business Admin., 121 F. 3d 1357 (1997). The majority held that under this Court's decision in Bowen v. Massachusetts, 487 U. S. 879 (1988), the APA waives immunity for equitable actions. Based in part on its analysis of several of our cases examining a surety's right of subrogation, the majority held that the APA had waived the Army's immunity from Blue Fox's suit to recover the amount withheld by the Army. The majority concluded that the lien attached to funds retained by the Army but owed to Verdan at the time the Army received Blue Fox's notice that Verdan had failed to pay. The majority stated that "[t]he Army cannot escape Blue Fox's equitable lien by wrongly paying out funds to the prime contractor when it had notice of Blue Fox's unpaid claims." 121 F. 3d, at 1363.
The dissenting judge stated that "no matter how you slice Blue Fox's claim, it seeks funds from the treasury to compensate for the Army's failure to require Verdan to post a bond." Id., at 1364 (opinion of Rymer, J.). In her view, Congress chose to protect subcontractors like Blue Fox through the bond requirements of the Miller Act, not by waiving immunity in the APA to permit subcontractors to sue the United States directly for amounts owed to them by the prime contractor. Because this rule has been "conventional wisdom for at least fifty years," she did not agree that Congress had waived the Army's sovereign immunity from Blue Fox's suit. Ibid. The Government petitioned for review, and we granted certiorari to decide whether the APA has
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