Bowles v. Russell

Bowles v. Russell, 551 U.S. ___ (2007)

As stated here, Bowles says that time limits are jurisdictional. Thomas writes one of his characteristically short, snappish opinions. Among other things, Thomas quotes Kontrick stating that "only Congress may determine a lower federal court's subject-matter jurisdiction." This isn't as unfortunate a statement as it may seem because Thomas's point is that Congress is the only institution that can determine SMJ -- he clearly doesn't mean, can't mean, that literally Congress determines SMJ: the Constitution, after all, has something to say about it.

Thomas's argument basically comes down to a distinction between "court-promulgated rules and limits enacted by Congress." This, of course, can't mean all that it says -- not every Congressional limit is jurisdictional. If that were so, then Arbaugh was just overruled. The employee-numerosity requirement, after all, is a "limit".

In any case, as I stated in the linked comment above, this case may be useful insofar as it stands for the idea that these issues of jurisdictionality are not settled, despite Arbaugh, and thus arguments about what the courts should treat as jurisdictional are still worth making.