Mullin v. Al Otro Lado · ¶45

Although that argument has some force, in the end it does not overcome the arguments that point the opposite way. The anti-surplusage canon is not an iron rule. As Justice Scalia put it, the canon expresses “our general reluctan[ce] to treat statutory terms as surplusage.” Freeman v. Quicken Loans, Inc., 566 U. S. 624, 635 (2012) (internal quotation marks omitted). The canon is based on an inference about how a careful writer or drafter of statutes ordinarily uses language, namely, that such a person is usually economical in the use of words. But even excellent writers do not always trim every unnecessary word, and the same is true of Congress.

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