Beach v. Ocwen Fed. Bank, 523 U.S. 410, 9 (1998)

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418

BEACH v. OCWEN FED. BANK

Opinion of the Court

the date of the occurrence of the violation as a matter of defense by recoupment or set-off in such action, except as otherwise provided by State law." 15 U. S. C. § 1640(e). Thus the effect of the 1-year limitation provision on damages actions is expressly deflected from recoupment claims. The quite different treatment of rescission stands in stark contrast to this, however, there being no provision for rescission as a defense that would mitigate the uncompromising provision of § 1635(f) that the borrower's right "shall expire" with the running of the time. Indeed, when Congress amended the Act in 1995 to soften certain restrictions on rescission as a defense in § 8, 109 Stat. 275-276, 15 U. S. C. §§ 1635(i)(1) and (2) (1994 ed., Supp. I), it took care to provide that any such liberality was "subject to the [three year] time period provided in subsection (f)," ibid., and it left a borrower's only hope for further recoupment in the slim promise of § 1635(i)(3), that "[n]othing in this subsection affects a consumer's right of rescission in recoupment under State law." § 8, 109 Stat. 276.6 Thus, recoupment of damages and rescission in the nature of recoupment receive unmistakably different treatments, which under the normal rule of construction are understood to reflect a deliberate intent on the part of Congress. See Bates v. United States, 522 U. S. 23, 29-30 (1997) (" ' "[W]here Congress includes particular language in one section of a statute but omits it in another section of the same Act, it is generally presumed that Congress acts intentionally and purposely in the disparate inclusion or exclusion" ' ") (quoting Russello v. United States, 464 U. S. 16, 23 (1983), in turn quoting United States v. Wong Kim Bo, 472 F. 2d 720, 722 (CA5 1972)). And the distinction thus indicated makes perfectly good sense. Since a statutory right of rescission could cloud a bank's title on foreclosure,

6 Since there is no claim before us that Florida law purports to provide any right to rescind defensively on the grounds relevant under the Act, we have no occasion to explore how state recoupment law might work when raised in a foreclosure proceeding outside the 3-year period.

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