Page:United States Reports 502 OCT. TERM 1991.pdf/585

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

Cite as: 502 U. S. 410 (1992)

427

Scalia, J., dissenting

ously inadequate to cover all of the disallowed claim: the lien would be voided only to the extent of the property’s value at the time of the bankruptcy court’s evaluation, and could be asserted against any increase in the value of the property that might later occur, in order to satisfy the disallowed claim. Unavoided liens (or more accurately, potentials of unavoided liens, since no one knows whether or when future evaluations of the relevant property will exceed that of the bankruptcy court) would impede the trustee’s management and settlement of the estate. It would be difficult, for example, to sell overencumbered property subject to outstanding liens pursuant to 11 U. S. C. § 363(b) or (c), since any postsale appreciation in the property could be levied upon by holders of disallowed secured claims. And in a sale of debtor property “free and clear” of the liens attached to it, see 11 U. S. C. § 363(f)(3), the undisturbed portion of the disallowed claimant’s lien might attach to the proceeds of that sale to the extent of the collateral’s postpetition appreciation, preventing the trustee from distributing some or all of the sale proceeds to creditors holding allowed claims. If possible, we should avoid construing the statute in a way that produces such absurd results. III Although the Court makes no effort to explain why petitioner’s straightforward reading of § 506(d) is textually or structurally incompatible with other portions of the statute, respondents and the United States do so. They point out, to begin with, that the two exceptions to § 506(d)’s nullifying effect both pertain to the disallowance of claims, and not to the inadequacy of security, see 11 U. S. C. §§ 506(d)(1) and (2)—from which they conclude that the applicability of § 506(d) turns only on the allowability of the underlying claim, and not on the extent to which the claim is a “secured claim” within the meaning of § 506(a). But the fact that the statute makes no exceptions to invalidation by reason of inadequate security in no way establishes that such (plainly