Gorsuch, J., dissenting
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 22–1078
WARNER CHAPPELL MUSIC, INC., ET AL., PETITIONERS v. SHERMAN NEALY, ET AL.
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
[May 9, 2024]
Justice Gorsuch, with whom Justice Thomas and Justice Alito join, dissenting.
The Court discusses how a discovery rule of accrual should operate under the Copyright Act. But in doing so it sidesteps the logically antecedent question whether the Act has room for such a rule. Rather than address that question, the Court takes care to emphasize that its resolution must await a future case. The trouble is, the Act almost certainly does not tolerate a discovery rule. And that fact promises soon enough to make anything we might say today about the rule’s operational details a dead letter.
“[O]rdinarily,” this Court has said, a claim “accrues when a plaintiff has a complete and present cause of action.” Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc., 572 U. S. 663, 670 (2014) (internal quotation marks and alteration omitted). “In other words, the limitations period generally begins to run at the point when the plaintiff can file suit and obtain relief.” Ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted). We call this the “incident of injury rule.” Ibid., n. 4. And we interpret statutes with that “ ‘standard rule’ ” in mind. Rotkiske v. Klemm, 589 U. S. 8, 13 (2019).
What of the discovery rule? It “starts the limitations period when the plaintiff discovers, or with due diligence should have discovered, the injury that forms the basis for
