Page:Bartenwerfer v. Buckley.pdf/10

Rh which rests on basic tenets of grammar, is more of the same.

Bartenwerfer also seeks support from §523(a)(2)(A)’s neighboring provisions, which both require action by the debtor herself. Section 523(a)(2)(B) bars the discharge of debts arising from the “use of a statement in writing—(i) that is materially false; (ii) respecting the debtor’s or an insider’s financial condition; (iii) on which the creditor to whom the debtor is liable … reasonably relied; and (iv) that the debtor caused to be made or published with intent to deceive.” (Emphasis added.) Similarly, §523(a)(2)(C) presumptively bars the discharge of recently acquired “consumer debts owed to a single creditor and aggregating more than $500 for luxury goods or services incurred by an individual debtor” and “cash advances aggregating more than $750 … obtained by an individual debtor.” §523(a)(2)(C)(i) (emphasis added). Unlike subparagraph (A), the discharge exceptions in subparagraphs (B) and (C) expressly require some culpable act on the part of the debtor. According to Bartenwerfer, these provisions make explicit what goes without saying in (A): The debtor’s own fraud must have given rise to the debt.

This argument flips the rule that “ ‘[w]hen Congress includes particular language in one section of a statute but omits it in another section of the same Act,’ we generally take the choice to be deliberate.” Badgerow v. Walters, 596 U. S. ___, ___ (2022) (slip op., at 8) (quoting Collins v. Yellen, 594 U. S. ___, ___ (2021) (slip op., at 23)). As the word “generally” indicates, this rule is not absolute. Context counts, and it is sometimes difficult to read much into the absence of a word that is present elsewhere in a statute. See, e.g., Field, 516 U. S., at 67–69. But if there is an inference to be drawn here, it is not the one that Bartenwerfer suggests. The more likely inference is that (A) excludes debtor culpability from consideration given that (B) and (C) expressly hinge on it.

Bartenwerfer retorts that it would have made no sense