Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-328_pm02.pdf
Page Number: 7.0

Cite as:  589 U. S. ____ (2019) 

5 

Opinion of the Court 

U. S. 409, 418–419 (2005) (quoting Bay Area Laundry and 
Dry Cleaning Pension Trust Fund v. Ferbar Corp. of Cal., 
522 U. S. 192, 201 (1997)).

Here, the text of §1692k(d) clearly states that an FDCPA 
action “may be brought . . . within one year from the date
on which the violation occurs.”  That language unambigu-
ously sets the date of the violation as the event that starts 
the one-year limitations period.  At the time of the FDCPA’s 
enactment, the term “violation” referred to the “[a]ct or in-
stance  of  violating,  or  state  of  being  violated.”    Webster’s 
New International Dictionary 2846 (2d ed. 1949) (Webster’s 
Second).  The term “occur” meant “to happen,” and, as Web-
ster’s  Second  explains,  “occur”  described  “that  which  is 
thought of as definitely taking place as an event.”  Id., at 
1684.  Read together, these dictionary definitions confirm 
what is clear from the face of §1692k(d)’s text: The FDCPA 
limitations  period  begins  to  run  on  the  date  the  alleged
FDCPA  violation  actually  happened.    We  must  presume
that Congress “says in a statute what it means and means
in a statute what it says there.”  Connecticut Nat. Bank, 503 
U. S., at 254. 

Rotkiske  does  not  contest  the  plain  meaning  of 
§1692k(d)’s  text  or  claim  that  he  brought  suit  within  one 
year of the alleged FDCPA violation.  Instead, he suggests
that  we  should  interpret  §1692k(d)  to  include  a  general 
“discovery rule” that applies to all FDCPA actions.  In ef-
fect, Rotkiske asks the Court to read in a provision stating
that §1692k(d)’s limitations period begins to run on the date
an alleged FDCPA violation is discovered. 

This expansive approach to the discovery rule is a “bad
wine of recent vintage.”  TRW Inc. v. Andrews, 534 U. S. 19, 
37 (2001) (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment).  It is a fun-
damental principle of statutory interpretation that “absent 
provision[s] cannot be supplied by the courts.”  A. Scalia & 
B. Garner, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts 
94 (2012).  To do so “ ‘is not a construction of a statute, but,