Page:United States Reports 502 OCT. TERM 1991.pdf/578

 502us2$27F 01-22-99 08:37:00 PAGES OPINPGT

420

DEWSNUP v. TIMM Scalia, J., dissenting

not be controlling. But, given the ambiguity here, to attribute to Congress the intention to grant a debtor the broad new remedy against allowed claims to the extent that they become “unsecured” for purposes of § 506(a) without the new remedy’s being mentioned somewhere in the Code itself or in the annals of Congress is not plausible, in our view, and is contrary to basic bankruptcy principles. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed. It is so ordered. Justice Thomas took no part in the consideration or decision of this case. Justice Scalia, with whom Justice Souter joins, dissenting. With exceptions not pertinent here, § 506(d) of the Bankruptcy Code provides: “To the extent that a lien secures a claim against the debtor that is not an allowed secured claim, such lien is void. . . .” Read naturally and in accordance with other provisions of the statute, this automatically voids a lien to the extent the claim it secures is not both an “allowed claim” and a “secured claim” under the Code. In holding otherwise, the Court replaces what Congress said with what it thinks Congress ought to have said—and in the process disregards, and hence impairs for future use, wellestablished principles of statutory construction. I respectfully dissent. I This case turns solely on the meaning of a single phrase found throughout the Bankruptcy Code: “allowed secured claim.” Section 506(d) unambiguously provides that to the extent a lien does not secure such a claim it is (with certain exceptions) rendered void. See 11 U. S. C. § 506(d). Congress did not leave the meaning of “allowed secured claim” to speculation. Section 506(a) says that an “allowed claim”