Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 474

524US2

Unit: $U93

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Cite as: 524 U. S. 417 (1998)

429

Opinion of the Court

ality of the Act. Subsection (a)(2) requires that copies of
any complaint ﬁled under subsection (a)(1) “shall be promptly
delivered” to both Houses of Congress, and that each House
shall have a right to intervene. Subsection (b) authorizes a
direct appeal to this Court from any order of the District
Court, and requires that the appeal be ﬁled within 10 days.
Subsection (c) imposes a duty on both the District Court and
this Court “to advance on the docket and to expedite to the
greatest possible extent the disposition of any matter
brought under subsection (a).” There is no plausible rea-
son why Congress would have intended to provide for such
special treatment of actions ﬁled by natural persons and to
have precluded entirely jurisdiction over comparable cases
brought by corporate persons. Acceptance of the Govern-
ment’s new-found reading of § 692 “would produce an absurd
and unjust result which Congress could not have intended.”
Grifﬁn v. Oceanic Contractors, Inc., 458 U. S. 564, 574
(1982).14

We are also unpersuaded by the Government’s argument
that appellees’ challenge to the constitutionality of the Act
is nonjusticiable. We agree, of course, that Article III of the
Constitution conﬁnes the jurisdiction of the federal courts to
actual “Cases” and “Controversies,” and that “the doctrine
of standing serves to identify those disputes which are
appropriately resolved through the judicial process.” Whit-

14 Justice Scalia objects to our conclusion that the Government’s read-
ing of the statute would produce an absurd result. Post, at 454–455.
Nonetheless, he states that “ ‘the case is of such imperative public impor-
tance as to justify deviation from normal appellate practice and to require
immediate determination in this Court.’ ” Post, at 455 (quoting this
Court’s Rule 11). Unlike Justice Scalia, however, we need not rely on
our own sense of the importance of the issue involved; instead, the struc-
ture of § 692 makes it clear that Congress believed the issue warranted
expedited review and, therefore, that Congress did not intend the result
that the word “individual” would dictate in other contexts.