# Connecticut National Bank v. Germain > Supreme Court of the United States · March 9, 1992 · 503 U.S. 249 URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9432492 ## Case - **Full name:** CONNECTICUT NATIONAL BANK v. GERMAIN, Trustee for the ESTATE OF O’SULLIVAN’S FUEL OIL CO., INC. - **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States - **Decided:** March 9, 1992 - **Citations:** 503 U.S. 249; 6 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. S 57; 92 Daily Journal DAR 3080; 26 Collier Bankr. Cas. 2d 175; 60 U.S.L.W. 4222; 22 Bankr. Ct. Dec. (CRR) 1130; 92 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 1971; 112 S. Ct. 1146; 117 L. Ed. 2d 391; 1992 U.S. LEXIS 1531 - **Precedential status:** Published - **Opinion:** Concurrence by Stevens - **Judges:** Thomas, Rehnquist, Scalia, Kennedy, Souter, Stevens, O'Connor, White, Blackmun - **Cited by:** 2,884 later opinions in the Frix Law Library ## Citator (automated) - **Yellow flag:** Questioned by Stanley v. Crossland (In re Lakeshore Village Resort, Ltd.), 81 F.3d 103 (1996). - Negative treatments: 2 - Distinguished by: 0 - Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9432492 ## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction) - stating in relation to the surplusage canon that "canons of construction are no more than rules of thumb that help courts determine the meaning of legislation, and in interpreting a statute a court should always turn first to one, cardinal canon before all others. We have stat… - explaining that canons of construction, like the canon against surplusage, "are no more than rules of thumb that help courts determine the meaning of legislation, and in interpreting a statute a court should always turn first to one, cardinal canon before all others," the cano… - Stating that the “cardinal canon” of statutory interpretation is that courts “must presume that a legislature says in a statute what it means and means in a statute what it says there... .When the words of a statute are unambiguous, then, this first canon is also the last: ‘ju… - finding that the statute governing appellate jurisdiction for bankruptcy cases does not preclude interlocutory appeals under 28 U.S.C. section 1292, because “so long as there is no ‘positive repugnancy’ between two laws, ... a court must give effect to both.” - stating that “[cjourts must presume that a legislature says in a statute what it means and means in a statute what it says there. When the words of a statute are unambiguous, then this first canon is also the last: ‘judicial inquiry is complete’ ” ## Opinion text *255 Justice Stevens, concurring in the judgment. Whenever there is some uncertainty about the meaning of a statute, it is prudent to examine its legislative history. 1 In this case, such an examination is appropriate because petitioner’s interpretation of 28 U. S. C. § 158 (d) creates an unusual overlap with 28 U. S. C. § 1291 . Rejecting petitioner’s position, the Court of Appeals concluded that in enacting the current system of bankruptcy appeals, Congress limited the scope of § 1292(b), excluding review by the courts of appeals of certain interlocutory bankruptcy orders. If Congress had intended such a significant change in the scheme of appellate jurisdiction, some indication of this purpose would almost certainly have found its way into the legislative history. The legislative record, however, contains no mention of an intent to limit the scope of § 1292(b). This silence tends to support the conclusion that no such change was intended. 2 Accordingly, notwithstanding the inferences drawn by the Court of Appeals, the legislative history is not only consist *256 ent with petitioner’s interpretation of the statute, but also actually supports it. For this reason, and because I agree with the Court’s textual analysis, I concur in its judgment. See Wisconsin Public Intervenor v. Mortier 501 U. S. 597, 611, n. 4 (1991) (“[Clommon sense suggests that inquiry benefits from reviewing additional information rather than ignoring it”). As Judge Learned Hand advised, statutes “should be construed, not as theorems of Euclid, but with some imagination of the purposes which lie behind them.” Lehigh Valley Coal Co. v. Yensavage, 218 F. 547, 553 (CA2 1914), cert. denied, 235 U. S. 705 (1915). Legislative history helps to illuminate those purposes. See American Hospital Assn. v. NLRB, 499 U. S. 606, 613-614 (1991); Edmonds v. Compagnie Generate Transatlantique, 443 U. S. 256, 266-267 (1979); see also Harrison v. PPG Industries, Inc., 446 U. S. 578, 602 (1980) (Rehnquist, J., dissenting) (“In a case where the construction of legislative language such as this makes so sweeping and so relatively unorthodox a change as that made here, I think judges as well as detectives may take into consideration the fact that a watchdog did not bark in the night”). Similarly, Justice Frankfurter’s scholarly observation concerning the interpretation of a statutory text also applies to the analysis of legislative history: “One must... listen attentively to what it does not say.” Frankfurter, Some Reflections on the Reading of Statutes, 47 Colum. L. Rev. 527 , 536 (1947). --- Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9432492. Public record. Not legal advice.