Warner Chappell Music, Inc. v. Nealy/Opinion of Justice Gorsuch
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 the claim.” Petrella, 572 U. S., at 670, n. 4 (internal quotation marks omitted). We have said, however, that the rule is not “applicable across all contexts.” TRW Inc. v. Andrews, 534 U. S. 19, 27 (2001). Far from it: Unless the statute at hand directs otherwise, we proceed consistent with traditional equitable practice and ordinarily apply the discovery rule only “in cases of fraud or concealment.” Ibid. We have long warned lower courts, too, against taking any more “expansive approach to the discovery rule.” Rotkiske, 589 U. S., at 14; see TRW Inc., 534 U. S., at 27–28.
There is little reason to suppose the Copyright Act’s provisions at issue in this case contemplate any departure from the usual rules. Section 507(b) provides that “[n]o civil action shall be maintained … unless it is commenced within three years after the claim accrued.” As the Court observed in Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc., standard language like that calls for the application of the standard incident of injury rule: “A copyright claim thus arises or ‘accrue[s]’ when an infringing act occurs,” not at some later date. 572 U. S., at 670. What this should mean for the case before us seems equally evident: Because everyone agrees Sherman Nealy filed suit more than three years after many of Warner Chappell’s alleged infringing acts, see ante, at 2, some (if not all) of his claims are untimely. Everyone agrees, too, that he has not alleged any fraud or concealment that would entitle him to equitable tolling. See Brief for Petitioners 39; Brief for Respondents 50–51. The discovery rule thus has no role to play here—or, indeed, in the mine run of copyright cases.
In one sense, the Court’s decision to pass over this complication may be understandable. After all, none of the parties before us questioned the application of a discovery rule in proceedings below, but joined issue only over how it should work. See ante, at 5, n. 1. And the Court may, as it does, resolve the parties’ dispute while leaving for another day the antecedent question whether a discovery rule exists under the Act. See ante, at 4–5.
But if that is a permissible course, it does not strike me as the most sensible one. Nothing requires us to play along with these particular parties and expound on the details of a rule of law that they may assume but very likely does not exist. Respectfully, rather than devote our time to this case, I would have dismissed it as improvidently granted and awaited another squarely presenting the question whether the Copyright Act authorizes the discovery rule. Better, in my view, to answer a question that does matter than one that almost certainly does not.