(Slip Opinion)                                   OCTOBER  TERM,  2015                                             1

Syllabus

NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued. The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader.   See United  States v. Detroit  Timber  &  Lumber  Co.,  200 U. S. 321, 337.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

Syllabus

MENOMINEE INDIAN TRIBE OF WISCONSIN  v.

UNITED STATES ET AL.

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA  CIRCUIT

No. 14–510. Argued December 1, 2015—Decided January 25, 2016 Pursuant to the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance

Act (ISDA), petitioner Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin con- tracted with the Indian Health Service (IHS) to operate what would otherwise have been a federal program and to receive an amount of money equal to what the Government would have spent on operating the program itself, including reimbursement for reasonable contract support costs. 25 U. S. C. §§450f, 450j–1(a). After other tribal enti- ties successfully litigated complaints against the Federal Govern- ment for failing to honor its obligation to pay contract support costs, the Menominee Tribe presented its own contract support claims to the IHS in accordance with the Contract Disputes Act of 1978 (CDA), which requires contractors to present each claim to a contracting of- ficer for decision, 41 U. S. C. §7103(a)(1). The contracting officer de- nied some of the Tribe’s claims because they were not presented with- in the CDA’s 6-year limitations period. See §7103(a)(4)(A).

The Tribe challenged the denials in Federal District Court, arguing that the limitations period should be tolled for the nearly two years   in which a putative class action, brought by tribes with parallel com- plaints, was pending. As relevant here, the District Court eventually denied the Tribe’s equitable-tolling claim, and the Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that no extraordinary circumstances beyond the Tribe’s control caused the delay.

Held: Equitable tolling does not apply to the presentment of petitioner’s claims.  Pp. 5–9.

(a)    To be entitled to equitable tolling of a statute of limitations, a litigant must establish “(1) that he has been pursuing his rights dili- gently,  and (2)  that  some  extraordinary circumstance stood  in   his

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way and prevented timely filing.” Holland v. Florida, 560 U. S. 631, 649. The Tribe argues that diligence and extraordinary circumstanc- es should be considered together as factors in a unitary test, and it faults the Court of Appeals for declining to consider the Tribe’s dili- gence in connection with its finding that no extraordinary circum- stances existed. But this Court has expressly characterized these two components as “elements,” not merely factors of indeterminate or commensurable weight, Pace v. DiGuglielmo, 544 U. S. 408, 418, and has treated  them as  such  in  practice,  see  Lawrence  v. Florida,   549

U. S. 327, 336–337. The Tribe also objects to the Court of Appeals’ interpretation of the “extraordinary circumstances” prong as requir- ing the showing of an “external obstacle” to timely filing. This Court reaffirms that this prong is met only where the circumstances that caused a litigant’s delay are both extraordinary and beyond its con- trol.  Pp. 5–7.

(b)    None of the Tribe’s excuses satisfy the “extraordinary circum- stances” prong of the test. The Tribe had unilateral authority to pre- sent its claims in a timely manner. Its claimed obstacles, namely, a mistaken reliance on a putative class action and a belief that pre- sentment was futile, were not outside the Tribe’s control. And the significant risk and expense associated with presenting and litigating its claims are far from extraordinary. Finally, the special relation- ship between the United States and Indian tribes, as articulated in   the ISDA, does not override clear statutory language.  Pp. 7–8.

764 F. 3d 51, affirmed.

ALITO, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.

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NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Wash- ington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

No. 14–510

MENOMINEE INDIAN TRIBE OF WISCONSIN, PETITIONER v. UNITED STATES, ET AL.

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

[January  25, 2016]

JUSTICE ALITO delivered the opinion of the Court. Petitioner Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin (Tribe)

seeks   equitable   tolling   to   preserve   contract   claims  not

timely presented to a federal contracting officer.  Because  the Tribe cannot  establish  extraordinary  circumstances that stood in the way of timely filing, we hold that equit-  able tolling does not  apply.

I

Congress enacted the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act (ISDA), Pub. L. 93–638, 88 Stat. 2203, 25 U. S. C. §450 et seq., in 1975 to help Indian tribes assume responsibility for aid programs that benefit their members. Under the ISDA, tribes may enter into “self- determination contracts” with federal agencies to take control of a variety of federally funded programs. §450f. A contracting tribe is eligible to receive the amount of money that the Government would have otherwise spent on the program, see §450j–1(a)(1), as well as reimbursement for reasonable “contract support costs,” which include admin- istrative and overhead costs associated with carrying out the contracted programs, §§450j–1(a)(2), (3), (5).

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In 1988, Congress amended the ISDA to apply the Con- tract Disputes Act of 1978 (CDA), 41 U. S. C. §7101 et seq., to   disputes   arising   under   the   ISDA.     See   25   U. S. C.

§450m–1(d); Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act Amendments of 1988, §206(2), 102 Stat. 2295. As part of its mandatory administrative process for resolving contract disputes, the CDA requires contractors to present “[e]ach claim” they may have to a contracting officer for decision. 41 U. S. C. §7103(a)(1). Congress later amended the CDA to include a 6-year statute of limita- tions for presentment of each claim. Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act of 1994, 41 U. S. C. §7103(a)(4)(A).

Under the CDA, the contracting officer’s decision is generally final, unless challenged through one of the statutorily authorized routes. §7103(g). A contractor dissatisfied with the officer’s decision may either take an administrative appeal to a board of contract appeals or file an action for breach of contract in the United States Court of Federal Claims. §§7104(a), (b)(1), 7105(b). Both routes then lead to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal   Circuit   for   any   further   review.      28   U. S.   C.

§1295(a)(3);   41   U. S. C.   §7107(a)(1);   see   25   U. S.   C.

§450m–1(d). Under the ISDA, tribal contractors have  a  third option. They may file a claim for money damages in federal district court, §§450m–1(a), (d), and if they lose,  they may pursue an appeal in one of the regional courts of appeals,  28 U.  S.  C. §1291.

Tribal contractors have repeatedly complained that the Federal Government has not fully honored its obligations to pay contract support costs. Three lawsuits making such claims are relevant here.

The first was a class action filed by the Ramah Navajo Chapter alleging that the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) systematically underpaid certain contract support costs. Ramah  Navajo  Chapter  v.   Lujan,   No.   1:90–cv–0957   (D NM) (filed Oct. 4, 1990).   In 1993, Ramah   successfully

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moved for certification of a nationwide class of  all  tribes that had contracted with the BIA  under  the  ISDA.  See  Order and Memorandum Opinion in  Ramah  Navajo  Chap- ter v. Lujan, No. 1:90–cv–0957 (D NM, Oct. 1, 1993), App. 35–40. The Government argued that each tribe needed to present its claims to a contracting officer before it could participate in the class. Id., at  37–38.  But  the  trial  court held that tribal contractors could participate in the class without presentment, because the suit alleged systemwide flaws in the BIA’s contracting scheme, not merely breaches  of individual contracts.  Id.,  at  39.  The  Government  did  not appeal the certification order, and the Ramah class  action proceeded to further litigation and    settlement.

The second relevant ISDA suit raised similar claims about contract support costs but arose from contracts with the Indian Health Service (IHS).   Cherokee Nation of  Okla.

v. United States, No. 6:99–cv–0092 (ED Okla.) (filed Mar. 5, 1999). In Cherokee Nation, two tribes filed a putative class action against IHS. On February 9, 2001, the Dis-  trict Court denied class certification without addressing whether tribes would need to present claims to join the class.     Cherokee  Nation  of  Okla.  v.  United  States,     199

F. R. D. 357, 363–366 (ED Okla.). The two plaintiff tribes did not appeal the denial of class certification but proceeded to the merits on their own, eventually prevailing before this Court in a parallel suit.  See Cherokee Nation of Okla.  v. Leavitt, 543 U. S. 631 (2005).

The third relevant case is the one now before us. In this case, the Tribe presented its contract support claims (for contract years 1995 through 2004) to IHS on September 7, 2005, shortly after our Cherokee Nation ruling.  As  rele-  vant here, the contracting officer denied the Tribe’s claims based on its 1996, 1997, and 1998 contracts because, inter alia, those claims were barred by the CDA’s 6-year statute

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of limitations.1 The Tribe challenged the denials in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, arguing, based on theories of class-action and equitable tolling, that the limitations period should be tolled for the 707 days that the putative Cherokee Nation class had been pending.    See  American  Pipe  &  Constr.  Co.  v.  Utah, 414

U. S. 538 (1974) (class-action tolling); Holland v. Florida, 560 U. S. 631 (2010) (equitable tolling).

Initially, the District Court held that the limitations period was jurisdictional and thus forbade tolling of any sort. 539 F. Supp. 2d 152, 154, and n. 2 (DDC 2008). On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit concluded that the limitations period was not jurisdictional and thus did not necessarily bar tolling. 614 F. 3d 519, 526 (2010). But the court held that the Tribe was ineligible for class-action tolling during the pendency of the putative Cherokee Nation class, because the Tribe’s failure to present its claims to IHS made it “ineligible to participate in the class action at the time class certification [was] denied.” 614 F. 3d, at 527 (apply- ing American Pipe). The court then remanded the case to the District Court to determine the Tribe’s eligibility for equitable tolling.

On remand, the District Court concluded  that  the Tribe’s asserted reasons for failing to present its claims within the specified time “do not, individually or collec- tively, amount to an extraordinary circumstance” that could warrant equitable tolling. 841 F. Supp. 2d 99, 107 (DC 2012) (internal quotation marks omitted). This time, the Court of Appeals affirmed.   764 F. 3d 51 (CADC 2014).    It

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1 Because the contract claims accrued no later than the end of each calendar-year contract, the District Court determined, the statute of limitations for the 1996, 1997, and 1998 contracts had run by January  1st of the years 2003, 2004,  and  2005,  respectively. 539  F. Supp.  2d 152, 154, n. 1 (DC 2008). The Tribe does not dispute the  timing  of accrual  before  this Court.

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explained that, “[t]o count as sufficiently ‘extraordinary’ to support equitable tolling, the circumstances that caused a  litigant’s delay must have been beyond its control,” and “cannot be a product of that litigant’s own misunderstand- ing of the law or tactical mistakes in litigation.” Id., at 58.  Because none of the Tribe’s proffered circumstances was beyond its control, the court held, there were no extraor- dinary circumstances that could merit equitable    tolling.

The Court of Appeals’ decision created a split with the Federal Circuit, which granted another tribal entity equi- table tolling under similar circumstances.  See  Arctic  Slope Native Assn., Ltd. v. Sebelius, 699 F. 3d  1289  (CA Fed. 2012). We granted certiorari to resolve the conflict. 576 U. S.       (2015).

II

The Court of Appeals denied the Tribe’s request for  equitable tolling by applying  the  test  that  we  articulated  in Holland v. Florida, 560 U. S. 631.  Under  Holland,  a  litigant is entitled to equitable tolling of a statute of limi- tations only if the litigant establishes two elements:  “(1)  that he has been pursuing his  rights  diligently,  and  (2)  that some extraordinary circumstance  stood  in  his  way  and prevented timely filing.” Id., at  649  (internal  quota- tion  marks omitted).

The Tribe calls this formulation of the equitable  tolling test overly rigid, given  the  doctrine’s  equitable  nature. First, it argues that diligence and extraordinary circum- stances should be considered together as two factors in a unitary test, and it faults the Court of Appeals for declin-    ing to consider the Tribe’s diligence in connection with its finding that no extraordinary  circumstances  existed.  But we have expressly characterized equitable tolling’s two components as “elements,” not merely factors of indeter- minate or commensurable  weight.  Pace  v.  DiGuglielmo,  544  U. S.  408,  418  (2005)  (“Generally,  a  litigant    seeking

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equitable tolling bears the burden of establishing two elements”). And we have treated the two requirements as distinct elements in practice, too, rejecting requests for equitable tolling where a litigant failed to  satisfy  one without addressing whether he  satisfied  the  other.  See,  e.g., Lawrence v. Florida, 549 U. S. 327, 336–337 (2007) (rejecting equitable tolling without addressing diligence because habeas petitioner fell “far short of showing ‘ex- traordinary circumstances’ ”); Pace, supra, at 418 (holding, without resolving litigant’s argument that he had  “satis-  fied the extraordinary circumstance test,” that,  “[e]ven  if  we were to accept [his argument], he would not be entitled to relief because he has not established the requisite diligence”).

Second, the Tribe objects to the Court of Appeals’ inter-  pretation of the “extraordinary circumstances” prong as requiring a litigant seeking tolling to show an “external obstacl[e]” to timely filing,  i.e.,  that  “the  circumstances  that caused a litigant’s delay must have been beyond its control.” 764 F. 3d,  at  58–59.  The  Tribe  complains  that this “external obstacle” formulation amounts to the same kind of “ ‘overly rigid per se approach’” we rejected in Holland. Brief for  Petitioner  32  (quoting  560  U. S.,  at   653). But in truth, the phrase “external obstacle” merely reflects our requirement  that  a  litigant  seeking  tolling show “that some extraordinary circumstance stood in his way.” Id., at 649 (emphasis  added;  internal  quotation  marks omitted). This phrasing in Holland (and in  Pace  before that) would make little sense if equitable  tolling  were available when a litigant was responsible for its own delay. Indeed, the diligence prong already covers those affairs within the litigant’s control; the extraordinary- circumstances prong, by contrast, is meant to cover  mat- ters outside its control. We therefore reaffirm that the second prong of the equitable tolling test  is  met  only   where the circumstances that caused a litigant’s delay are

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both extraordinary and beyond its   control.2

III

The Tribe offers no circumstances that meet this stand-  ard.

Its mistaken reliance on the putative Cherokee Nation class action was not an obstacle beyond its control.3 As  the Tribe conceded below, see 614 F. 3d, at 526–527, it could not have been a member of the putative Cherokee Nation class because it did not present its claims to an  IHS contracting officer before class certification was de- nied. Before then, the Tribe had unilateral authority to present its claims and to join the putative class. Present- ment was blocked not by an obstacle outside its control, but by the Tribe’s mistaken belief that presentment was unneeded.

The Tribe’s mistake, in essence, was  its  inference  that  the reasoning of the Ramah class certification decision (allowing tribes to participate—without presentment—in the class challenging underpayment of BIA contract sup-  port costs) applied to the putative Cherokee Nation class. This mistake was fundamentally no different from  “a  garden variety claim of excusable neglect,” Irwin v. De- partment of Veterans Affairs, 498 U. S. 89, 96 (1990), “such  as a simple ‘miscalculation’ that leads a lawyer to miss a filing deadline,” Holland, supra, at 651 (quoting Lawrence,  supra,  at  336).    And  it  is  quite  different  from  relying  on

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2 Holland v. Florida, 560 U. S. 631 (2010), is a habeas case, and we have never held that its equitable-tolling test necessarily applies outside the habeas context. Nevertheless, because we agree that the Tribe cannot meet Holland’s test, we have no occasion to decide whether an even stricter test might apply to a nonhabeas case. Nor does the Tribe argue that a more generous test than Holland’s should  apply here.

3 Because we conclude that the Tribe’s mistake of law was not outside its control, we need not decide whether a mistake of law, however reasonable, could ever be extraordinary.

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actually binding precedent that is subsequently reversed.4 The Tribe’s other excuses are even less compelling. Its belief that presentment was futile was not an obstacle beyond its control but a species of the same mistake that kept it out of the putative Cherokee Nation class. And the fact that there may have been significant risk and expense associated with presenting and litigating its claims is far from extraordinary. As the District Court noted below, “it is common for a litigant to be confronted with significant costs to litigation, limited financial resources, an uncer- tain outcome based upon an uncertain legal landscape, and  impending  deadlines.   These  circumstances  are not

‘extraordinary.’”  841 F. Supp. 2d, at 107.

Finally, the Tribe also urges us to consider the special relationship between the United  States  and  Indian  tribes, as articulated in the ISDA. See 25 U. S. C. §450a(b)  (“Congress declares its commitment to the maintenance of the Federal Government’s unique and continuing relation- ship with, and responsibility to,  individual  Indian  tribes  and to the Indian people as a whole”). We do not question  the “general trust relationship between the United  States and the Indian tribes,” but any specific obligations the Government may have under that relationship are “gov- erned by statute rather than the common law.”  United  States v. Jicarilla  Apache  Nation,  564  U. S.  162,  165  (2011). The ISDA and CDA establish a clear procedure for  the resolution of disputes over ISDA contracts, with an unambiguous 6-year deadline for presentment of claims.  The “general trust  relationship”  does  not  override  the clear  language  of  those statutes.5

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4 The Court of Appeals speculated, without deciding, that such a de- velopment might merit tolling, but like that court we have no occasion to decide the question.

5 Because we hold that there  were  no  extraordinary  circumstances,  we need not decide whether the  Tribe  was  diligently  pursuing  its rights.   We also need not  accept  the  Tribe’s  invitation to  assess    preju-

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IV

For these reasons, the judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is affirmed.

It is so ordered.

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dice to the Government, because the absence of prejudice to the oppos- ing party “is not an independent basis for invoking the doctrine [of equitable tolling] and sanctioning deviations from established proce- dures.” Baldwin County Welcome Center v. Brown, 466 U. S.  147,  152 (1984) (per curiam). Rather, the absence of prejudice is “a factor to be considered in determining whether the doctrine of equitable tolling should apply once a factor that might justify  such  tolling  is  identified.” Ibid.  (emphasis added).