Cite as: 534 U. S. 438 (2002)
Syllabus
§ 9701(c)(2), filed suit against the Commissioner. The District Court granted them summary judgment, concluding that the Act's classification regime does not provide for the liability of successors of defunct signatory operators. In affirming, the Fourth Circuit concluded that the Act was clear and unambiguous and that the court was bound to read it exactly as it was written, and held, inter alia, that Jericol was not a "related person" to Shackleford and thus could not be held responsible for Shackleford's miners.
Held: The Coal Act does not permit the Commissioner to assign retired miners to the successors in interest of out-of-business signatory operators. Pp. 450-462.
1. Because the Act is explicit as to who may be assigned liability for beneficiaries and neither the "related persons" provision nor any other provision states that successors in interest to these signatory operators may be assigned liability, the Act's plain language necessarily precludes the Commissioner from assigning the disputed miners to Jericol. Where, as here, the statutory language is unambiguous, the inquiry ceases. See, e. g., United States v. Ron Pair Enterprises, Inc., 489 U. S. 235, 240. Since the retirees at issue were Shackleford employees, the "signatory operator" that sold its assets to Jericol (then-Irdell) in 1973, the Commissioner can only assign the beneficiaries to Jericol if it is a "related person" to Shackleford under § 9706(a). Section 9701(c)(2) states that "[a] person shall be considered to be a related person to a signatory operator if that person is—" "(i) a member of the controlled group of corporations . . . which includes [the] signatory operator"; "(ii) a trade or business . . . under common control . . . with such signatory operator"; or "(iii) any other person who [has] a partnership interest or joint venture with a signatory operator" with some exceptions. A related person also includes "a successor in interest of any person described in clause (i), (ii), or (iii)." There is no contention that Jericol was ever a member of a controlled group of corporations including Shackleford, that it was ever a business under common control with Shackleford, or that it ever had a partnership interest or engaged in a joint venture with Shackleford. Therefore, liability for these beneficiaries may attach to Jericol only if it is a successor in interest to an entity described in §§ 9701(c)(2)(A)(i)-(iii). Because Jericol is a successor in interest only to Shackleford, Jericol will be liable only if a signa-tory operator itself, here Shackleford, falls within one of these categories. None of the three categories, however, includes the signatory operator itself. Nor should such inclusion be inferred, since it is a general principle of statutory construction that when one statutory section includes particular language that is omitted in another section of the
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