Cite as: 503 U. S. 30 (1992)
Stevens, J., dissenting
turn over tangible property of the debtor it had seized before the debtor filed for bankruptcy protection. A suit for payment of funds from the Treasury is quite different from a suit for the return of tangible property in which the debtor retained ownership. The Court's opinion in Whiting Pools contains no discussion of § 106(c), and nothing in it suggests that an order granting monetary recovery from the United States would be proper.
Resort to the principles of trust law is also of no help to respondent. Most of the trust decisions respondent cites are irrelevant, since they involve private entities, not the Government. The one that does involve the Government, Bull v. United States, 295 U. S. 247 (1935), concerns equitable recoupment, a doctrine that has been substantially narrowed by later cases, see United States v. Dalm, 494 U. S. 596, 608 (1990), and has no application here.
* * *
Neither § 106(c) nor any other provision of law establishes an unequivocal textual waiver of the Government's immunity from a bankruptcy trustee's claims for monetary relief. Since Congress has not empowered a bankruptcy court to order a recovery of money from the United States, the judgment of the Court of Appeals must be reversed.
It is so ordered.
Justice Stevens, with whom Justice Blackmun joins, dissenting.
The injustice that the Court condones today demonstrates that it is time to reexamine the wisdom of the judge-made rules that drive its decision.
An officer of an insolvent corporation appropriated corporate funds and used them to discharge a personal tax obligation. Because the Federal Government was the ultimate recipient of the stolen property, the Court holds that the
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