654
Opinion of Thomas, J.
Court's construction is plainly contrary to this intent and is not "fairly possible" under the terms of the statute. Rather than a reasonable alternative reading, therefore, the interpretation adopted by the Court today is effectively a declaration that the statute as written is unconstitutional.
Which leads to my final, and perhaps most fundamental, disagreement with the Court. Before a court can appropriately invoke the Crowell/DeBartolo rule of construction, it must have a significantly higher degree of confidence that the statutory provision would be unconstitutional should the problematic interpretation be adopted. The potential due process problem troubling the Court is the supposed lack of a neutral or "impartial" arbitration hearing. Ante, at 626. This potential is based on an "assumption" about a "risk" or "possibility" of trustee bias, ante, at 617, 618—bias that, if it existed, might be "preserve[d]" during the arbitration proceeding by the presumption of correctness. Ante, at 620. Petitioner has not established that the trustees were biased in fact. And whatever structural bias may flow from the trustees' fiduciary obligations or from the fact that the trustees are appointed by interested parties, see ante, at 616-617, will likely be nullified by the elaborately detailed criteria that channel and cabin their exercise of discretion. See 29 U. S. C. §§ 1381-1399 (1988 ed. and Supp. III). Such bias may be checked, in particular, by the requirement of consistency that governs the trustees' choice of a method for calculating liability. See Keith Fulton & Sons, Inc. v. New England Teamsters & Trucking Industry Pension Fund, Inc., 762 F. 2d 1137, 1142 (CA1 1985) (en banc). And the very fiduciary duty the trustees owe to the fund should simultaneously prevent them from imposing excessive withdrawal liability that will discourage other employers from joining the fund in the future. Id., at 1142-1143. The Court does not consider these countervailing forces.
But even if there is a real risk that structural bias may distort the trustees' factual determinations, I am inclined
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