254
Opinion of the Court
legislature says in a statute what it means and means in a statute what it says there. See, e. g., United States v. Ron Pair Enterprises, Inc., 489 U. S. 235, 241-242 (1989); United States v. Goldenberg, 168 U. S. 95, 102-103 (1897); Oneale v. Thornton, 6 Cranch 53, 68 (1810). When the words of a statute are unambiguous, then, this first canon is also the last: "judicial inquiry is complete." Rubin v. United States, 449 U. S. 424, 430 (1981); see also Ron Pair Enterprises, supra, at 241.
Germain says that legislative history points to a different result. But we think that judicial inquiry into the applicability of § 1292 begins and ends with what § 1292 does say and with what § 158(d) does not. Section 1292 provides for review in the courts of appeals, in certain circumstances, of "[i]nterlocutory orders of the district courts of the United States." Section 158(d) is silent as to review of interlocu-tory orders. Nowhere does § 1292 limit review to orders issued by district courts sitting as trial courts in bankruptcy rather than appellate courts, and nowhere else, whether in § 158(d) or any other statute, has Congress indicated that the unadorned words of § 1292 are in some way limited by implication. "It would be dangerous in the extreme to infer . . . that a case for which the words of an instrument expressly provide, shall be exempted from its operation." Sturges v. Crowninshield, 4 Wheat. 122, 202 (1819); see also Regents of Univ. of Cal. v. Public Employment Relations Bd., 485 U. S. 589, 598 (1988). There is no reason to infer from either § 1292 or § 158(d) that Congress meant to limit appellate review of interlocutory orders in bankruptcy proceedings. So long as a party to a proceeding or case in bankruptcy meets the conditions imposed by § 1292, a court of appeals may rely on that statute as a basis for jurisdiction.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
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