Cite as: 514 U. S. 725 (1995)
Thomas, J., dissenting
lated by genetics, adoption, or marriage," or a nontraditional one, comprising "a group of five or fewer persons who are not [so] related." § 21.30.010, App. 250. As respondent United States conceded at oral argument, the effect of these provisions is to establish a rule that "no house in [a single-family] area of the city shall have more than five occupants unless it is a [traditional kind of] family." Tr. of Oral Arg. 46. In other words, petitioner's zoning code establishes for certain dwellings "a five-occupant limit, [with] an exception for [traditional] families." Ibid.
To my mind, the rule that "no house . . . shall have more than five occupants" (a "five-occupant limit") readily qualifies as a "restrictio[n] regarding the maximum number of occupants permitted to occupy a dwelling." In plain fashion, it "restrict[s]"—to five—"the maximum number of occupants permitted to occupy a dwelling." To be sure, as the majority observes, the restriction imposed by petitioner's zoning code is not an absolute one, because it does not apply to related persons. See ante, at 736. But § 3607(b)(1) does not set forth a narrow exemption only for "absolute" or "unqualified" restrictions regarding the maximum number of occupants. Instead, it sweeps broadly to exempt any restrictions regarding such maximum number. It is difficult to imagine what broader terms Congress could have used to signify the categories or kinds of relevant governmental restrictions that are exempt from the FHA.1
1 A broad construction of the word "any" is hardly novel. See, e. g., John Hancock Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. Harris Trust and Sav. Bank, 510 U. S. 86, 96 (1993) (citing, as examples where "Congress spoke without qualification" in ERISA, an exemption for " 'any security' issued to a plan by a registered investment company" and an exemption for " 'any assets of . . . an insurance company or any assets of a plan which are held by . . . an insurance company' " (quoting 29 U. S. C. §§ 1101(b)(1), 1103(b)(2)) (emphasis in John Hancock)); Citizens' Bank v. Parker, 192 U. S. 73, 81 (1904) ("The word any excludes selection or distinction. It declares the exemption without limitation").
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