Cite as: 534 U. S. 19 (2001)
Opinion of the Court
scenario put forth by Andrews and the Government, however, requires the assumption that, even if the consumer exercised reasonable diligence by requesting her credit report without delay, she would not in fact learn of the disclosure because the credit reporting agency would conceal it. The uncovering of that concealment would remain the triggering event for both the discovery rule and the express exception. In this scenario, as in the paradigmatic one, the misrepresentation exception would be superfluous.
In any event, both Andrews and the Government concede that the independent function one could attribute to the express exception would arise only in "rare and egregious case[s]." Brief for Respondent 32-33; see Brief for United States et al. as Amici Curiae 24 (implied discovery rule would apply in "vast majority" of cases). The result is that a rule nowhere contained in the text of § 1681p would do the bulk of that provision's work, while a proviso accounting for more than half of that text would lie dormant in all but the most unlikely situations.
It is "a cardinal principle of statutory construction" that "a statute ought, upon the whole, to be so construed that, if it can be prevented, no clause, sentence, or word shall be superfluous, void, or insignificant." Duncan v. Walker, 533 U. S. 167, 174 (2001) (internal quotation marks omitted); see United States v. Menasche, 348 U. S. 528, 538-539 (1955) ("It is our duty 'to give effect, if possible, to every clause and word of a statute.' " (quoting Montclair v. Ramsdell, 107 U. S. 147, 152 (1883))). "[W]ere we to adopt [Andrews'] construction of the statute," the express exception would be rendered "insignificant, if not wholly superfluous." Duncan, 533 U. S., at 174. We are "reluctant to treat statutory terms as surplusage in any setting," ibid. (internal alteration and quotation marks omitted), and we decline to do so here.5
5 Similarly, even if we agreed that the discovery and equitable estoppel doctrines could comfortably coexist in this setting, we would reject the contention that we are therefore free to incorporate both into the
31
Page: Index Previous 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007