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SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
_________________
No. 22–846
_________________
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE RURAL DEVELOP- MENT
RURAL HOUSING SERVICE, PETITIONER
v. REGINALD KIRTZ
on writ of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the third circuit
[February 8, 2024]
Justice Gorsuch delivered the opinion of the
Court.
A credit report can determine everything from
whether a person can secure a credit card, purchase a home, win a
new job, or start a small business. Recognizing the importance of
accuracy in credit reporting, Congress adopted the Fair Credit
Reporting Act in 1970 (FCRA). In its present form, the Act allows
consumers to sue private lenders who willfully or negligently
supply false information about them to agencies that generate
credit reports. The question we face is whether one of the Nation’s
largest lenders—the federal government—is also susceptible to suit
when it supplies false information, or whether it may invoke
sovereign immunity to avoid liability.
I
This case arises from a loan Reginald Kirtz
secured from the Rural Housing Service. The Service, a division of
the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), “issues loans
to promote the development of safe and affordable housing in rural
communities.”
Kirtz v.
Trans Union LLC, 46 F. 4th
159, 163 (CA3 2022). According to Mr. Kirtz, he repaid his loan in
full by mid-2018. See Amended Complaint in No. 2:20–cv–05231 (ED
Pa.), ECF Doc. 20, p. 3, ¶11. Despite this, the USDA
repeatedly told TransUnion, a company engaged in the business of
preparing consumer credit reports, that his account was past due.
Ibid., ¶12. These misrepresentations damaged his credit
score and threatened his ability to secure future loans at
affordable rates. See
id., at 3–4, ¶¶12–14. In an effort to
resolve the problem, Mr. Kirtz alerted TransUnion to the error, and
the company, in turn, notified the USDA.
Id., at 5, ¶¶16,
20. But, Mr. Kirtz says, the USDA failed to take “any action to
investigate or correct” its records. 46 F. 4th, at 163. So he
eventually decided to sue the agency under the FCRA.
Ibid.
As originally enacted in 1970, the FCRA focused
largely on two groups. First, it addressed “consumer reporting
agenc[ies]” like TransUnion, charging them with various new duties
designed to ensure the accuracy and confidentiality of their work.
See,
e.
g., 84Stat. 1129, 1132; 15 U. S. C.
§§1681b, 1681i. Second, it imposed new regulations on “person[s]”
who procure credit information from consumer reporting agencies.
So, for example, the Act provided that a “person” who requests “an
investigative consumer report on any consumer” must inform the
consumer in writing “not later than three days after the date on
which the report was first requested.” 84Stat. 1130; see §1681d(a).
The FCRA proceeded to define the term “person” broadly to “mea[n]
any individual, partnership, corporation, trust, estate,
cooperative, association, government or governmental subdivision or
agency, or other entity.” 84Stat. 1128; see §1681a(b). The Act
further authorized consumers to seek damages for violations of its
terms, but only against consumer reporting agencies and those who
use the information they produce. 84Stat. 1134; see §§1681n,
1681
o (1970 ed.).
In the Consumer Credit Reporting Reform Act of
1996, Congress amended the FCRA to broaden its reach. As relevant
here, Congress added provisions addressing those who furnish
information to consumer reporting agencies. Referencing the
definition of “person” it had adopted in 1970, Congress instructed
that, if a consumer disputes “the completeness or accuracy” of his
credit information, the “person” who furnished it must investigate
the matter and take steps to correct any mistake. 110Stat.
3009–448; see §1681s–2(b). To enforce these new duties, Congress
revised the 1970 Act’s remedial provisions. Where it had once
authorized consumer suits against only consumer reporting agencies
and users of their information, Congress now authorized consumer
suits against “[a]ny person” who willfully or negligently fails to
comply with “any” of the law’s “requirement[s].” 110Stat. 3009–446;
see §§1681n(a), 1681
o(a).
Mr. Kirtz sought relief under these new
provisions. According to his complaint, the USDA furnished
information to TransUnion. The agency had notice that the
information it supplied was false. That false information impaired
Mr. Kirtz’s ability to access affordable credit. Yet the agency
failed to take any steps to correct its mistake—either willfully
(in violation of §1681n) or negligently (in violation of
§1681
o). By way of remedy, Mr. Kirtz sought money damages
consistent with what the FCRA allows. See Amended Complaint 12.
In response, the USDA moved to dismiss the
complaint. The agency did not dispute that allegations like Mr.
Kirtz’s state a viable claim for relief. Instead, it pointed to
this Court’s precedents holding that, as sovereign, the federal
government enjoys immunity from suits for money damages unless
Congress waives that immunity. And, the agency contended, nothing
in the FCRA purports to render the federal government amenable to
suit. The district court sided with the USDA, but the Third Circuit
reversed. Speaking for a unanimous panel, Judge Krause observed
that §§1681n and 1681
o authorize suits for damages against
“any person” who violates the Act, and §1681a expressly defines
“person” to include “any” government agency. 46 F. 4th, at
164–166.
The question whether Mr. Kirtz may sue the
federal government holds significance for many. A 2021 study cited
by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau “found that over 34% of
consumers surveyed were able to identify at least one error in
their credit reports.” 87 Fed. Reg. 64689–64690 (2022). Mistakes
like these can lead lenders to insist on higher interest rates or
other terms that make it “difficult or impossible” for consumers
“to obtain a mortgage, auto loan, student loan, or other credit.”
Id., at 64689. These days, too, federal agencies are among
“ ‘the largest furnishers of credit information’ ” to
consumer reporting agencies. Brief for Petitioner 38 (quoting
Robinson v.
Department of Education, 590 U. S.
___, ___ (2020) (Thomas, J., dissenting from denial of certiorari)
(slip op., at 3)). Yet the lower courts have reached different
views on the question whether federal agencies are answerable under
the FCRA for their mistakes. Like the Third Circuit, the Seventh
and D. C. Circuits have held that the FCRA authorizes suits
against government agencies no less than it does private lenders.
The Fourth and Ninth Circuits, by contrast, have held that
sovereign immunity bars consumer suits against federal agencies. We
agreed to hear this case to resolve that conflict. 599 U. S.
___ (2023).
II
The parties agree on the principles that guide
our analysis even as they disagree on the answer those principles
yield. Under this Court’s precedents, both sides acknowledge, the
United States, as sovereign, is generally immune from suits seeking
money damages. See,
e.g., United States v.
Testan,
424 U.S.
392, 399 (1976). At the same time, Congress may choose to waive
that immunity.
Ibid. But because the power to waive the
federal government’s immunity is Congress’s prerogative, not ours,
this Court applies a “clear statement” rule. Under the rule’s
terms, we will permit a suit against the government only when a
statute “unmistakabl[y]” allows it.
FAA v.
Cooper,
566 U.S.
284, 291 (2012). “Congress need not state its intent in any
particular way.”
Ibid. It need not “use magic words.”
Ibid. Nor must it “make its clear statement in a single
section or in statutory provisions enacted at the same time.”
Kimel v.
Florida Bd. of Regents,
528 U.S.
62, 76 (2000). But, one way or another, a waiver of sovereign
immunity must be “unmistakably clear in the language of the
statute.”
Id., at 73 (internal quotation marks omitted).
Necessarily, this inquiry trains on statutory
text rather than legislative history. Because “[a]ny ambiguities in
the statutory language are to be construed in favor of immunity,”
no amount of legislative history can “supply a waiver that is not
clearly evident from the language of the statute.”
Cooper,
566 U. S., at 290; accord,
Lane v.
Peña,
518 U.S.
187, 192 (1996). Conversely, when an “ ‘unmistakably
clear’ ” waiver of sovereign immunity appears in a statute, no
amount of legislative history can dislodge it.
Dellmuth v.
Muth,
491 U.S.
223, 230 (1989); see
Food Marketing Institute v.
Argus Leader Media, 588 U.S. 427, 436 (2019) (“Even those of
us who sometimes consult legislative history will never allow it to
be used to muddy the meaning of clear statutory language” (internal
quotation marks omitted)). Either way, then, a court charged with
asking whether Congress has spoken clearly has its answer long
before it might have reason to consult the Congressional
Record.
To date, this Court has found a clear waiver of
sovereign immunity “in only two situations.”
Financial Oversight
and Management Bd. for P. R. v.
Centro De Periodismo
Investigativo, Inc., 598 U.S. 339, 347 (2023). “The first is
when a statute says in so many words that it is stripping immunity
from a sovereign entity.”
Ibid. Congress has employed this
approach in the Bankruptcy Code, for example, where it has stated
that, “[n]otwithstanding an assertion of sovereign immunity,
sovereign immunity is abrogated as to a governmental unit
. . . with respect to” enumerated provisions of the Code.
11 U. S. C. §106(a). The second situation “is when a
statute creates a cause of action” and explicitly “authorizes suit
against a government on that claim.”
Financial Oversight and
Management Bd., 598 U. S., at 347. Statutes like these may
not discuss sovereign immunity in so many words. But dismissing a
claim against the government in these circumstances would
effectively “negat[e]” a claim Congress has clearly authorized.
Id., at 348.
The Court encountered a statute falling into
this second category in
Kimel,
528 U.S.
62. That case involved the question whether the Age
Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA) abrogated state
sovereign immunity. As originally enacted, the ADEA authorized
employees to bring claims against employers who discriminate based
on age. 29 U. S. C. §§623(a), 626(c)(1). A later
amendment incorporated into the ADEA a provision of the Fair Labor
Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA) that extended the right to bring
claims for age-based discrimination “against any employer
(
including a public agency).” §216(b) (emphasis added); see
§626(b). And, elsewhere, the FLSA defined “ ‘[p]ublic
agency’ ” to include “the government of a State or political
subdivision thereof ” and “any agency of . . . a
State, or a political subdivision of a State.” §203(x). In light of
these amendments and their cross-references,
Kimel held, the
statute’s “plain language . . . clearly demonstrate[d]
Congress[’s] intent to subject the States to suit for money damages
at the hands of individual employees.” 528 U. S., at 74.
Guided by these principles, we think the Third
Circuit reached the right decision in this case: The FCRA effects a
clear waiver of sovereign immunity. In §1681s–2, the Act requires
“person[s]” who furnish information to consumer reporting agencies
to investigate consumer complaints and make any necessary
corrections. 15 U. S. C. §1681s–2(b). In §§1681n and
1681
o, the Act authorizes consumer suits for money damages
against “[a]ny person” who willfully or negligently fails to comply
with this directive. §§1681n(a), 1681
o(a). In §1681a, the
Act defines the term “ ‘person’ ” to include “any
. . . governmental . . . agency.” §1681a(b).
And the same provision instructs us to apply this definition
throughout the entire “subchapter” where §§1681n and 1681
o
appear. §1681a(a). Through this series of statutory directions, no
less than those we encountered in
Kimel, Congress has
explicitly permitted consumer claims for damages against the
government. Dismissing suits like Mr. Kirtz’s would effectively
“negat[e]” suits Congress has clearly authorized.
Financial
Oversight and Management Bd., 598 U. S., at 348.
We need look no further to resolve this case.
But if we do, other portions of the FCRA point to the same
conclusion. Section 1681a(y) excludes from the definition of
“consumer report” certain communications that “are not provided to
any person
except . . . any Federal or State
officer, agency, or department, or any officer, agency, or
department of a unit of general local government.” (Emphasis
added.) Section 1681b requires a “person” who intends to take an
“adverse [employment] action” based on a consumer credit report to
provide the affected individual with a copy of the report
unless “an agency or department of the United States
Government” seeks to use the report as part of a national security
investigation. §§1681b(b)(3)(A), (4)(A). Both provisions thus
exempt government agencies from the Act’s otherwise-broad
definition of “person” for particular reasons in particular
contexts. All of which tends to confirm what the Act tells us
explicitly: Throughout the Act, the term “person” includes the
government unless otherwise noted. See
Southwest Airlines
Co. v.
Saxon, 596 U.S. 450, 457–458 (2022) (recounting
the traditional canon of construction that material variations in
usage can illuminate a statute’s meaning).
To be sure, there are other provisions in the
FCRA—just as there are elsewhere in the U. S. Code—that
address the question of sovereign immunity in different and
arguably even more obvious terms. For example, Congress added
§1681u to the FCRA as part of the Intelligence Authorization Act
for Fiscal Year 1996. See 109Stat. 974. That provision allows the
Federal Bureau of Investigation to access consumer information,
subject to a number of constraints. See §§1681u(a)–(d). At the same
time, the statute indicates that the failure to respect those
constraints can expose “[a]ny agency or department of the United
States” to “liab[ility] to the consumer” for money damages.
§1681u(j). While nothing in §1681u discusses sovereign immunity as
such, everyone agrees its language clearly waives sovereign
immunity.
None of that, however, makes the waiver of
sovereign immunity reflected in the provisions now before us any
less clear. “If no magic words are required” to waive sovereign
immunity, then the clarity of “each statute must be evaluated on
its own terms.”
Pennsylvania v.
Union Gas Co.,
491 U.S.
1, 13, n. 4 (1989). And the fact that Congress chose to
use certain language to waive sovereign immunity in one amendment
to the FCRA hardly means it was “foreclose[d] . . . from
using different language to accomplish th[e] same goal” in a
different set of amendments to the same law.
Lac du Flambeau
Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians v.
Coughlin, 599
U.S. 382, 395 (2023). The question we must answer is not whether
§§1681a, 1681n, and 1681
o speak in the same terms as §1681u.
The only question we face is whether those provisions speak clearly
to the government’s
liability. Because they do, that is the end of
the matter.[
1]
III
A
While the government largely accepts our
understanding of this Court’s sovereign-immunity jurisprudence, it
disputes some of the finer points. As an initial matter, the
government asserts that, “to impose liability on a sovereign, a
plaintiff must identify both a ‘source of substantive law’ that
‘provides an avenue for relief’
and ‘a waiver of sovereign
immunity.’ ” Brief for Petitioner 14 (quoting
FDIC v.
Meyer,
510 U.S.
471, 484 (1994)). The implication is that a cause of action
explicitly against the government is insufficient unless
accompanied by a separate provision addressing sovereign immunity.
See Brief for Petitioner 14.
That implication is incorrect. At the risk of
repeating ourselves, a cause of action authorizing suit against the
government may waive sovereign immunity even without a separate
waiver provision.
Financial Oversight and Management Bd.,
598 U. S., at 347; see,
e.
g.,
Seminole Tribe
of Fla. v.
Florida,
517 U.S.
44, 56–57 (1996) (Congress abrogated state sovereign immunity
when it explicitly authorized a cause of action against “Stat[es],”
despite the absence of a separate waiver provision). Nor does
FDIC v.
Meyer, where this Court refused to recognize
an
implied cause of action, say anything to the contrary.
See 510 U. S., at 484. The government must know as much. Why
else would it hold out §1681u—a section that contains an express
cause of action against the government but no separate waiver
provision—as “a model for authorizing suits against the United
States”? Brief for Petitioner 34.
Changing tack but pursuing the same end, the
government points to the canon against superfluity. Proper respect
for Congress cautions courts against lightly assuming that any of
the statutory terms it has chosen to employ are “superfluous” or
“void” of significance.
TRW Inc. v.
Andrews,
534 U.S.
19, 31 (2001) (internal quotation marks omitted). From this
familiar teaching, the government seeks to extrapolate a new rule:
A provision can waive sovereign immunity only if that provision
would have no other role to play in the statutory scheme. Brief for
Petitioner 20–21. That rule should foreclose suit here, the
government submits, because allowing federal agencies a
sovereign-immunity defense would not foreclose
every suit
under §§1681n and 1681
o. See
id., at 24. After all,
even if consumers injured by government agencies could not seek
relief under these provisions, other consumers harmed by private
creditors still could. See
ibid.
We cannot agree with this suggestion any more
than the last. The canon against rendering statutory terms a
nullity has a long lineage. But this Court has never endorsed the
notion that a statute may effect a waiver of sovereign immunity
only if that is the sole work it performs. Doing so would (again)
effectively force Congress to address sovereign immunity in so many
words in a discrete statutory provision. It would come perilously
close, as well, to imposing a “magic-words” requirement. For good
reason, then, the government’s supposed rule appears in none of the
decisions it directs us to—not in
Seminole Tribe of Fla.,
517 U.S.
44, not in
Kimel,
528 U.S.
62, and not in
Nevada Dept. of Human Resources v.
Hibbs,
538 U.S.
721 (2003). See Brief for Petitioner 18–19.
The government has another theory to offer. We
may not find a waiver of sovereign immunity, it suggests, “when a
cause of action merely cross-references a general definition that
includes sovereigns along with non-sovereigns.”
Id., at 22.
Running with this idea, the government concedes that Congress would
have clearly waived sovereign immunity if it had “plug[ged]” the
full definition of “persons” from §1681a directly into §§1681n and
1681
o. Tr. of Oral Arg. 7; accord, Brief for Petitioner 22.
But, the government argues, a waiver of sovereign immunity cannot
be effected by reading these provisions in combination.
This theory encounters its own difficulties.
Under this Court’s precedents, Congress need not “make its clear
statement in a single section” adopted at a single moment in time.
Kimel, 528 U. S., at 76. Instead, what matters is
whether Congress has authorized a waiver of sovereign immunity that
is “clearly discernible” from the sum total of its work.
Lac du
Flambeau, 599 U. S., at 388 (internal quotation marks
omitted). Were the rule otherwise, large swathes of our modern
sovereign-immunity case law would be cast into doubt. After all, in
Kimel this Court relied on the ADEA’s incorporation of the
FLSA’s enforcement provision, and the latter provision’s
incorporation, in turn, of a separate definitional provision. See
528 U. S., at 73–75. In
Union Gas, the Court relied on
the definition of “person” in the Comprehensive Environmental
Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 along with other
clues from surrounding statutory provisions. 491 U. S., at
7–10. And in
Seminole Tribe we “confirm[ed]” the “clear
statement in one statutory subsection by looking to provisions in
[an]other subsection.”
Kimel, 528 U. S., at 104–105
(Thomas, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (citing
Seminole Tribe, 517 U. S., at 56–57).
Alternatively still, the government points to
Atascadero State Hospital v.
Scanlon,
473 U.S.
234 (1985), and
Employees of Dept. of Public Health and
Welfare of Mo. v.
Department of Public Health and Welfare of
Mo.,
411 U.S.
279 (1973). These cases, the government insists, impose still
other and more demanding rules a court must follow before finding a
waiver of sovereign immunity. See Brief for Petitioner 21, 25.
To appreciate the problem with this line of
thinking, some background helps. For a period in the mid-20th
century, this Court’s approach to sovereign immunity looked
considerably different than it does today (or did before). Back
then, in cases like
Parden v.
Terminal R. Co. of
Ala. Docks Dept.,
377 U.S.
184 (1964), this Court was content to do away with state
sovereign immunity without clear authorization from Congress.
Instead, the Court would infer a congressional intention to
abrogate immunity from statutory text that made no mention of the
government,
id., at 187, 199 (White, J., dissenting),
sometimes resting on clues found in legislative history, see,
e.
g.,
Hutto v.
Finney,
437 U.S.
678, 694 (1978). In time, the Court began to break from this
approach. See
College Savings Bank v.
Florida Prepaid
Postsecondary Ed. Expense Bd.,
527 U.S.
666, 677–678 (1999). But decades passed before the Court
definitively repudiated
Parden. See,
e.
g.,
Welch v.
Texas Dept. of Highways and Public Transp.,
483 U.S.
468, 478 (1987) (indicating that later decisions had implicitly
overruled
Parden, but explicitly overruling
Parden
for good measure);
Dellmuth, 491 U. S., at 230
(rejecting the use of legislative history when assessing whether
Congress abrogated sovereign immunity);
College Savings
Bank, 527 U. S., at 680 (overruling “[w]hatever may remain
of our decision in
Parden”).
Atascadero was one of the decisions
issued during the course of this journey—and it does nothing to
help the government’s cause. In
Parden, the Court had held
that a private individual could sue “a railroad owned and operated
by Alabama . . . under the Federal Employers’ Liability
Act.”
College Savings Bank, 527 U. S., at 676. This was
so “[d]espite the absence of any provision in the statute
specifically referring to the States.”
Ibid. Why? Because
the Act applied “to ‘every’ common carrier by railroad in
interstate commerce,” and Alabama’s railroad met that description.
Parden, 377 U. S., at 187. When later faced with a
similar statute—one that permitted suit against “ ‘any
recipient of Federal assistance’ ”—the
Atascadero Court
rejected
Parden’s reasoning, holding that this sort of
“general authorization for suit in federal court is not the kind of
unequivocal statutory language sufficient to abrogate” state
sovereign immunity. 473 U. S., at 245–246. “When Congress
chooses to subject the States to federal jurisdiction,” the Court
continued, “it must do so specifically.”
Id., at 246.
Understood in context, then,
Atascadero stands only for the
now-familiar proposition that Congress must, at a minimum, mention
the government when it wishes to scrap sovereign immunity and
permit claims for damages. The decision does not—contrary to the
government’s submission—counsel against recognizing a waiver of
sovereign immunity when Congress authorizes suit against “any
person” and takes the further step of expressly defining that term
to include “any . . . government . . .
agency.”
Employees was another case decided during
the long retreat from
Parden. And, on first encounter, it
might seem more promising for the government. That case concerned
the FLSA, which authorizes actions against “employer[s]” for unpaid
overtime, and the question whether that law clearly permitted suit
against state agencies. See
Employees, 411 U. S., at
282. As originally drafted, the Act defined the term “employer” to
exclude state agencies.
Ibid. But a later amendment to the
statute’s definitional section brought some state agencies within
its reach.
Id., at 282–283. Recognizing that “the literal
language” of the Act as amended covered some state agencies, the
Court nevertheless concluded that Congress had not spoken clearly
enough to abrogate state sovereign immunity. See
id., at
283, 285. As the government sees it, the same logic applies with
equal force here. Brief for Petitioner 25–28.
By its own terms, however,
Employees is
distinguishable. The
Employees Court stressed that, while
Congress amended the definitional section of the FLSA to include
States, it had not made any changes to the underlying liability
provision. And, the Court reasoned, “it would be surprising” to
think Congress meant to deprive a State of immunity on the basis of
a change to a definitional section alone, without any accompanying
change to the pertinent liability provision. 411 U. S., at 285
(internal quotation marks omitted). But what the FLSA lacked, the
FCRA supplies. As we have seen, Congress
did amend the
FCRA’s liability provisions in 1996. In doing so, Congress replaced
the narrow class of defendants originally subject to suit for money
damages—consumer reporting agencies and users of the information
they supply. See Part I,
supra; 84Stat. 1134; §§1681n,
1681
o (1970 ed.). In its stead, Congress provided that a
different and much larger class of defendants—“[a]ny person,”
110Stat. 3009–446—may be sued for violating “any requirement” of
the FCRA. §§1681n(a), 1681
o(a). And from the statute’s
start, Congress has defined the term “person” to include “any”
government agency. 84Stat. 1128; see §1681a(b).
There is another problem with the government’s
invocation of
Employees. Despite recognizing that “the
literal language of the” FLSA permitted suits against States, the
Employees Court considered it all but dispositive that it
could not find “a word” in the Act’s legislative history indicating
that Congress wanted “to make it possible for a citizen of that
State or another State to sue the State in the federal courts.” 411
U. S., at 283, 285. As should be clear by now, that is not how
this Court’s contemporary sovereign- immunity doctrine works. With
time, this Court has resolved that our task is to look for “a clear
statement in the text of the statute.”
Sossamon v.
Texas,
563 U.S.
277, 290 (2011). And just as it is error to displace sovereign
immunity based on inferences from legislative history without clear
statutory direction (
Parden), so it is error to grant
sovereign immunity based on inferences from legislative history in
the face of clear statutory direction waiving that immunity
(
Employees). The government itself has elsewhere recognized
that such notions are “relic[s] from a ‘bygone era of statutory
construction.’ ”
Food Marketing Institute, 588
U. S., at 437 (quoting Brief for United States as
Amicus
Curiae in
Food Marketing Institute, O. T. 2018, No.
18–481, p. 19).
In saying this much, we do not wash our hands of
Employees. No one before us questions that the decision is
entitled to
stare decisis effect with respect to the
portions of the FLSA it addressed. We recognize only that the Court
has since repeatedly disavowed the decision’s methodological
approach and cautioned against its use when considering claims of
sovereign immunity in other contexts.[
2]
B
In a final set of arguments, the government
pursues a different theme. Now accepting the contemporary
sovereign-immunity principles we have outlined, the government
contends the provisions of the FCRA before us are still
insufficient to abrogate immunity. Here, the government
acknowledges that §§1681n and 1681
o expressly authorize
suits against “any person.” It acknowledges that §1681a expressly
defines “person” to include “any” federal agency. But the
government asks us to hold that §§1681n and 1681
o do not
clearly waive sovereign immunity because they do not “unambiguously
incorporate” §1681a’s definition. Brief for Petitioner 28.
That is no small ask. When Congress takes the
trouble to define the terms it uses, a court must respect its
definitions as “virtually conclusive.”
Sturgeon v.
Frost, 587 U.S. 28, 56 (2019) (internal quotation marks
omitted). This Court will not deviate from an express statutory
definition merely because it “varies from [the] term’s ordinary
meaning.”
Digital Realty Trust, Inc. v.
Somers, 583
U.S. 149, 160 (2018). Nor will we disregard a statutory definition
simply because the question before us happens to involve sovereign
immunity. See
Seminole Tribe, 517 U. S., at 57,
n. 9. Rather, this Court has said it will deviate from a
statutory definition only when applying the definition would be
“incompatible with Congress[’s] regulatory scheme” or would
“destro[y] one of the statute’s major purposes.”
Digital Realty
Trust, 583 U. S., at 163–164 (internal quotation marks and
alterations omitted).
The government does not even try to meet that
standard in this case. How could it? The government acknowledges
that federal agencies are among “ ‘the largest furnishers of
credit information in the country.’ ” Brief for Petitioner 38
(quoting
Robinson, 590 U. S., at ___ (opinion of
Thomas, J.) (slip op., at 3)). So applying the Act’s definitional
and civil liability provisions as written and allowing suits
against federal agencies to proceed would, if anything, seem
consistent with the Act’s goal of “ensur[ing] fair and
accurate credit reporting.”
Safeco Ins. Co. of America v.
Burr,
551 U.S.
47, 52 (2007).
Recognizing this problem, the government
suggests a different kind of “[i]ncongruit[y]” would arise if
§§1681n and 1681
o incorporated §1681a’s definition of
“person.” Brief for Petitioner 33. The government focuses on the
fact that §1681a’s definition of “person” includes not just federal
agencies but state entities as well. So giving that definition
effect in §§1681n and 1681
o would render “not just the
federal government, but also individual States” susceptible to
consumer suits for money damages.
Ibid. And that result, the
government contends, is unthinkable. Unthinkable because Congress
enacted the FCRA pursuant to the Constitution’s Commerce Clause—a
provision this Court has held does not endow Congress with the
power to abrogate state sovereign immunity.
Id., at 34; see
Florida Prepaid Postsecondary Ed. Expense Bd. v.
College
Savings Bank,
527 U.S.
627, 636 (1999) (“Congress may not abrogate state sovereign
immunity” through “the Commerce Clause”).
While the premise of the government’s argument
is correct, its conclusion is not. If the FCRA is a piece of
Commerce Clause legislation, the waiver of sovereign immunity
effected by §§1681n and 1681
o might be constitutionally
invalid as applied against individual States. But none of that
means we may disregard the statute’s clear terms. See
Seminole
Tribe, 517 U. S., at 57, n. 9 (“We already have found
the clear statement rule satisfied, and that finding renders the
preference for avoiding a constitutional question inapplicable”);
United States v.
Oakland Cannabis Buyers’
Cooperative,
532 U.S.
483, 494 (2001) (“[T]he canon of constitutional avoidance has
no application in the absence of statutory ambiguity”). Instead, we
ask two distinct questions in cases involving claims of state
sovereign immunity: “first, whether Congress unequivocally
expressed its intent to abrogate that immunity; and second, if it
did, whether Congress acted pursuant to a valid grant of
constitutional authority.”
Kimel, 528 U. S., at 73.
Often, this Court has found, a federal statute
does clearly
seek to abrogate a State’s immunity
but lacks constitutional
authority to accomplish that objective. See,
e.
g.,
id., at 67;
Seminole Tribe, 517 U. S., at 47;
Allen v.
Cooper, 589 U.S. 248, 255–256 (2020).
Analytically, today’s case is no different. “[P]erson” means what
the FCRA says it means, even if state defendants might be able to
raise a valid constitutional defense to a consumer suit that the
federal government cannot.
Perhaps recognizing as much, the government
pivots to a discussion of the Act’s other enforcement mechanisms.
Most notably, the government points to §1681q, which makes it a
crime—punishable by a fine, imprisonment, or both—for “[a]ny
person” to “knowingly and willfully obtai[n]” consumer information
“under false pretenses.” As the government sees it, the term
“person” in this provision cannot possibly bear its statutory
definition because it is “absur[d]” to think Congress might have
authorized criminal enforcement against federal agencies. Brief for
Petitioner 31 (internal quotation marks omitted). What’s more, the
government submits, because the term “person” cannot include
“government” in §1681q, it cannot include “government” in §§1681n
and 1681
o either.
Id., at 30–31.
Again, however, that much does not follow.
Suppose, as the Third Circuit did when analyzing Mr. Kirtz’s claim,
that “[i]t would be absurd . . . to subject the federal
government to criminal prosecution.” 46 F. 4th, at 171–172.
Suppose, too, that this absurdity supplies the exceptional reason
necessary to deviate from §1681a’s definition of “person” in
§1681q’s criminal-enforcement provision. Even spotting the
government that much for argument’s sake, absurdity is not
contagious: The power to correct for an absurdity “in one portion
of a statute” does not imply a “license to distort other provisions
of the statute.”
NLRB v.
Health Care & Retirement
Corp. of America,
511 U.S.
571, 579 (1994). And the government offers no basis for us to
think that applying §1681a’s definition to the Act’s consumer-suit
provisions in §§1681n and 1681
o—as opposed to its criminal
provisions in §1681q—would lead to absurd results. Our obligation
therefore remains “to enforce” the statutes presently before us,
each “according to its terms.”
Hartford Underwriters Ins.
Co. v.
Union Planters Bank, N. A.,
530 U.S.
1, 6 (2000) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Consider the alternative. If we could ignore
§1681a’s definition of “person” when it comes to §§1681n and
1681
o simply because applying that definition to other
statutory provisions could lead to absurd results, where
would §1681a’s definition apply? Before the Seventh Circuit,
the government proposed this solution: treating federal agencies as
“person[s]” subject to all the Act’s “substantive requirements” but
exempt from any of its liability provisions.
Bormes v.
United States, 759 F.3d 793, 795 (2014). That kind of
“wholly artificial,” if surely convenient, distinction lacks any
grounding in the statutory text, 46 F. 4th, at 166, and has no
proper place in our jurisprudence, cf.
Niz-Chavez v.
Garland, 593 U.S. 155, 172 (2021) (“[W]ords are how the law
constrains power”).
Venturing even further from the relevant
statutory text, the government offers one last argument. It
observes that the Privacy Act of 1974 covers some of the same
ground we attribute to the FCRA. Passed “to protect the privacy of
individuals identified in [federal] information systems,” 88Stat.
1896, the Privacy Act addresses the government’s retention and
disclosure of personal information, see 5 U. S. C. §552a,
including the disclosure of that information to consumer reporting
agencies, see 31 U. S. C. §3711(e). If a federal agency
supplies inaccurate information, the Privacy Act allows individuals
to seek a court order requiring it to correct its records. See 5
U. S. C. §§552a(g)(1)–(2). Money damages are also
sometimes available. §552a(g)(4). Because these remedies have long
been available to address agency misconduct under the Privacy Act,
the government reasons, there was no reason for Congress to
supplement them with additional remedies under the FCRA.
That’s an unusual argument. Even the government
concedes that, the Privacy Act notwithstanding, it
is
subject to and liable under at least some provisions of the FCRA.
E.g., Brief for Petitioner 34–35 (conceding the government
may be held liable under §1681u);
id., at 28 (“Sometimes,”
the Act’s “use of the word ‘person’ . . . refers to the
default statutory definition in [§]1681a(b)”). Nor is the need to
juggle multiple and sometimes overlapping legal obligations an
unusual feature of contemporary American life for the government
any more than it is for the governed. Recognizing this fact—and
mindful our role is to apply the law, not rewrite it—we approach
federal statutes touching on the same topic with a “strong
presumption” they can coexist harmoniously. See
Epic Systems
Corp. v.
Lewis, 584 U.S. 497, 510 (2018) (internal
quotation marks and alterations omitted). Only by carrying a “heavy
burden” can a party convince us that one statute “displaces” a
second.
Ibid. Where two laws are merely complementary—as is
undisputedly the case here—our duty lies not in preferring one over
another but in giving effect to both.
Gallardo v.
Marstiller, 596 U.S. 420, 432 (2022); see 46 F. 4th, at 176
(“USDA has not identified any actual inconsistency between the
Privacy Act and the [FCRA]”).
*
The Executive Branch may question the wisdom
of holding federal agencies accountable for their violations of the
Fair Credit Reporting Act; certainly the many and resourceful
arguments it advances today suggest as much. But Congress’s
judgment commands our respect and the law it has adopted speaks
clearly: A consumer may sue “any” federal agency for defying the
law’s terms. Because it faithfully followed this legislative
direction, the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Third
Circuit is
Affirmed.