BFP v. Resolution Trust Corporation, 511 U.S. 531, 40 (1994)

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570

BFP v. RESOLUTION TRUST CORPORATION

Souter, J., dissenting

the trustee to avoid "involuntar[y] . . . transfers [including foreclosure sales] . . . [for] less than a reasonably equivalent value," see 11 U. S. C. § 548(a), and another precluding such avoidance when "[a] secured party or third party purchaser . . . obtains title to an interest of the debtor in property pursuant to a good faith prepetition foreclosure . . . proceeding . . . permitting . . . the realization of security upon default of the borrower," see S. 445, 98th Cong., 1st Sess., § 360 (1983). But that choice is not ours to make, for Congress made it in 1984, by enacting the former alternative into law and not the latter. Without some indication that doing so would frustrate Congress's clear intention or yield patent absurdity, our obligation is to apply the statute as Congress wrote it. Doing that in this case would produce no frustration or absurdity, but quite the opposite.

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