Cite as: 507 U. S. 511 (1993)
Opinion of the Court
money for service members only at the cost of injuring their own credit, their family's credit, and the domestic economy; 11
it presumably required a showing of prejudice only when it seemed necessary to confer on the service member a genuine benefit. By distinguishing sharply between the two types of protections, Congress unquestionably contemplated the ways that either type of protection would affect both military debtors and their civilian creditors.
The long and consistent history and the structure of this legislation therefore lead us to conclude that—just as the language of § 525 suggests—Congress made a deliberate policy judgment placing a higher value on firmly protecting the service member's redemption rights than on occasionally burdening the tax collection process. Given the limited number of situations in which this precisely structured statute offers such absolute protection, we cannot say that Con-11 The House Report on the suspension of suits in the 1918 Act, for example, provided in part:
"The lesson of the stay laws of the Civil War teaches that an arbitrary and rigid protection against suits is as much a mistaken kindness to the soldier as it is unnecessary. A total suspension for the period of the war of all rights against a soldier defeats its own purpose. In time of war credit is of even more importance than in time of peace, and if there were a total prohibition upon enforcing obligations against one in military service, the credit of a soldier and his family would be utterly cut off. No one could be found who would extend them credit." H. R. Rep. No. 181, 65th Cong., 1st Sess., 2-3 (1917).
And Congressman Webb, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, stated:
"Manifestly, if this Congress should undertake to pass an arbitrary stay law providing that no creditor should ever sue or bring proceedings against any soldier while in the military service of his country, that would upset business very largely in many parts of the country. In the next place, it would be unfair to the creditor as well as to the soldier. It would disturb the soldier's credit probably in many cases and would deny the right of the creditor to his just debts from a person who was amply able to pay and whose military service did not in the least impair his ability to meet the obligation." 55 Cong. Rec. 7787 (1917). See Boone v. Lightner, 319 U. S. 561, 566, 567, 568 (1943).
517
Page: Index Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007