OCTOBER TERM, 1991
Syllabus
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the ninth circuit
No. 90-1491. Argued November 5, 1991—Decided December 11, 1991
During the 90-day period preceding its filing of a petition under Chapter 7 of the Bankruptcy Code, ZZZZ Best Co., Inc. (Debtor) made two interest payments and paid a loan commitment fee on its long-term debt to petitioner, Union Bank (Bank). After he was appointed trustee of the Debtor's estate, respondent Wolas filed a complaint against the Bank to recover those payments as voidable preferences under 11 U. S. C. § 547(b). The Bankruptcy Court held that the payments were transfers made in the ordinary course of business pursuant to § 547(c)(2) and thus were excepted from § 547(b). The District Court affirmed, but the Court of Appeals reversed, holding that the ordinary course of business exception was not available to long-term creditors.
Held: 1. Payments on long-term debt, as well as those on short-term debt, may qualify for the ordinary course of business exception to the trustee's power to avoid preferential transfers. Section 547(c)(2) contains no language distinguishing between long- and short-term debt and, therefore, provides no support for Wolas' contention that its coverage extends only to short-term debt. Moreover, § 547's relevant history in part supports, and is not otherwise inconsistent with, a literal reading of the statute. While § 547(c)(2), as originally enacted, was limited to payments made within 45 days of the date a debt was incurred, Congress amended the provision in 1984 by deleting the time limitation entirely. That Congress may have intended only to address particular concerns of specific short-term creditors in the amendment or may not have foreseen all of the consequences of its statutory enactment is insufficient reason for refusing to give effect to § 547(c)(2)'s plain meaning. Also unpersuasive is Wolas' argument that Congress originally enacted § 547(c)(2) to codify a judicially crafted "current expense" rule covering contemporaneous exchanges for new value, since other § 547(c) exceptions occupy some (if not all) of the territory previously covered by that rule, and since there is no extrinsic evidence that Congress intended to codify the rule in § 547(c)(2). Nor does the fact that the exception's availability to long-term creditors may not directly further § 547's underlying policy of equality of distribution among all creditors support
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