Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/20-543_3e04.pdf
Page Number: 22

Cite as:  594 U. S. ____ (2021) 

19 

Opinion of the Court 

Native village or regional or village corporation,” 25 U. S. C. 
§5304(e)).  On this reading, the way to tell whether a tribe, 
band, nation, or other organized group or community is an
“Indian tribe” is to ask whether it is federally recognized,
but the way to tell whether an Alaska Native village or cor-
poration is an “Indian tribe” is to ask whether it is “defined
in  or  established  pursuant  to”  ANCSA.  Ibid.    Otherwise, 
despite being prominently “includ[ed]” in the “Indian tribe” 
definition, ibid., all ANCs would be excluded by a federal-
recognition  requirement  there  is  no  reasonable  prospect 
they could ever satisfy.

Respondents object (and the dissent agrees) that this con-
struction  “produces  grammatical  incoherence.”    Brief  for 
Respondents Confederated Tribes of Chehalis Reservation 
et al.  16;  post,  at  4–5.    They  point  out  that  a  modifying 
clause  at  the  end  of  a  list  (like  the  recognized-as-eligible 
clause)  often  applies  to  every  item  in  the  list.  See,  e.g., 
Jama  v.  Immigration  and  Customs  Enforcement,  543 
U. S.  335,  344,  n. 4  (2005).    The  so-called  series-qualifier 
canon can be a helpful interpretive tool, and it supports the 
idea that the recognized-as-eligible clause applies to every
type of entity listed in the “Indian tribe” definition, includ-
ing ANCs.  Given that the entities in the Alaska clause are 
the closest in proximity to the recognized-as-eligible clause,
that canon arguably applies with particular force here. 

As the Court reiterated earlier this Term, however, the 
series-qualifier canon gives way when it would yield a “con-
textually implausible outcome.”  Facebook, Inc. v. Duguid, 
592 U. S. ___, ___ (2021) (slip op., at 9); see also id., at ___ 
(ALITO, J., concurring in judgment) (slip op., at 1) (noting 
that “[c]anons are useful tools, but it is important to keep
their limitations in mind.  This may be especially true with 
respect to . . . the ‘series-qualifier’ canon”).  The most gram-
matical reading of a sentence in a vacuum does not always
produce the best reading in context.  See, e.g., Sturgeon, 577 
U. S., at 438 (“Statutory language ‘cannot be construed in a