Cite as: 534 U. S. 19 (2001)
Opinion of the Court
As TRW notes, however, Congress also heard testimony urging it to enact a statute of limitations that runs from "the date on which the violation is discovered" but declined to do so. Hearings before the Subcommittee on Consumer Affairs of the House Committee on Banking and Currency, 91st Cong., 2d Sess., 188 (1970). In addition, the very change to § 1681p's language on which Andrews relies could be read to refute her position. The misrepresentation exception was added at the same time Congress changed the language "date of the occurrence of the violation" to "liability arises." Compare S. 823, 91st Cong., 1st Sess., § 618 (1969); H. R. 16340, 91st Cong., 2d Sess., § 27 (1970); H. R. 14765, 91st Cong., 1st Sess., § 617 (1969), with H. R. Rep. No. 91-1587, p. 22 (1970). We doubt that Congress, when it inserted a carefully worded exception to the main rule, intended simultaneously to create a general discovery rule that would render that exception superfluous. In sum, the evidence of the early incarnations of § 1681p, like the "liability arises" language on which Congress ultimately settled, fails to convince us that Congress intended sub silentio to adopt a general discovery rule in addition to the limited one it expressly provided.
III
In this Court, Andrews for the first time presents an alternative argument based on the "liability arises" language of § 1681p. Brief for Respondent 22-25. She contends that even if § 1681p does not incorporate a discovery rule, "liability" under the FCRA does not necessarily "arise" when a violation of the Act occurs. Noting that the FCRA's substantive provisions tie "liability" to the presence of "actual damages," §§ 1681n, 1681o, and that "arise" means at least "to come into existence," Andrews concludes that "liability arises" only when actual damages materialize. Not until then, she maintains, will all the essential elements of a claim coalesce: "duty, breach, causation, and injury." Brief for Respondent 23; see Hyde v. Hibernia Nat. Bank, 861 F. 2d
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