Cite as: 530 U. S. 1 (2000)
Opinion of the Court
statute . . . names the parties granted [the] right to invoke its provisions, . . . such parties only may act." 2A N. Singer, Sutherland on Statutory Construction § 47.23, p. 217 (5th ed. 1992) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Federal Election Comm'n v. National Conservative Political Action Comm., 470 U. S. 480, 486 (1985). Second, the fact that the sole party named—the trustee—has a unique role in bankruptcy proceedings makes it entirely plausible that Congress would provide a power to him and not to others. Indeed, had no particular parties been specified—had § 506(c) read simply "[t]here may be recovered from property securing an allowed secured claim the reasonable, necessary costs and expenses, etc."—the trustee is the most obvious party who would have been thought empowered to use the provision. It is thus far more sensible to view the provision as answering the question "Who may use the provision?" with "only the trustee" than to view it as simply answering the question "May the trustee use the provision?" with "yes."
Nor can it be argued that the point of the provision was simply to establish that certain costs may be recovered from collateral, and not to say anything about who may recover them. Had that been Congress's intention, it could easily have used the formulation just suggested. Similarly, had Congress intended the provision to be broadly available, it could simply have said so, as it did in describing the parties who could act under other sections of the Code. Section 502(a), for example, provides that a claim is allowed unless "a party in interest" objects, and § 503(b)(4) allows "an entity" to file a request for payment of an administrative expense. The broad phrasing of these sections, when contrasted with the use of "the trustee" in § 506(c), supports the conclusion that entities other than the trustee are not entitled to use § 506(c). Russello v. United States, 464 U. S. 16, 23 (1983).
Petitioner's primary argument from the text of § 506(c) is that "what matters is that section 506(c) does not say that
7
Page: Index Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007