Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/22-10_ifjn.pdf
Page Number: 16.0

12 

DUBIN v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of the Court 

course . . . Congress, like ‘Humpty Dumpty,’ has the power 
to give words unorthodox meanings.”  Id., at 575.  Yet where 
“the Government argues for a result that the English lan-
guage tells us not to expect, . . . we must be very wary of the 
Government’s  position.”  Ibid.  (internal  quotation  marks 
omitted).

The  title  suggests  identity  theft  is  at  the  core  of
§1028A(a)(1).  On the Government’s reading, however, eve-
ryday  overbilling  would  become  the  most  common  trigger
for §1028A(a)(1)’s severe penalty.  This would turn the core 
of “worse or more serious” identity theft into something the 
ordinary user of the English language would not consider 
identity theft at all. 

2 
The title is, by definition, just the beginning.  A title does 
not supplant the actual text of the provision, as the Govern-
ment  observes.  The  problem  for  the  Government  is  that
§1028A(a)(1)’s language points in the same direction as its 
title.  In particular, Congress used a trio of verbs that reflect
an ordinary understanding of identity theft.

While  “uses”  is  indeterminate  in  isolation,  here  it  has 
company.  Section  1028A(a)(1)  applies  when  a  defendant
“knowingly transfers, possesses, or uses, without lawful au-
thority, a means of identification of another person,” “dur-
ing  and  in  relation  to”  any  predicate  offense.    (Emphasis 
added.)  “Under the familiar interpretive canon noscitur a 
sociis, ‘a word is known by the company it keeps.’ ”  McDon-
nell v. United States, 579 U. S. 550, 568–569 (2016) (quot-
ing Jarecki v. G. D. Searle & Co., 367 U. S. 303, 307 (1961)).
“[T]his canon is often wisely applied where a word is capa-
ble of many meanings in order to avoid the giving of unin-
tended breadth to the Acts of Congress.”  McDonnell, 579 
U. S., at 569 (internal quotation marks omitted). 

The  two  neighboring  verbs  here,  “transfers”  and  “pos-
sesses,”  are  most  naturally  read  in  the  context  of