Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/17-1618_hfci.pdf
Page Number: 155

Cite as:  590 U. S. ____ (2020) 

11 

KAVANAUGH, J., dissenting 

In other words, this Court’s precedents and longstanding 
principles of statutory interpretation teach a clear lesson: 
Do not simply split statutory phrases into their component 
words, look up each in a dictionary, and then mechanically
put them together again, as the majority opinion today mis-
takenly does.  See ante, at 5–9.  To reiterate Justice Scalia’s 
caution, that approach misses the forest for the trees. 

A literalist approach to interpreting phrases disrespects
ordinary meaning and deprives the citizenry of fair notice
of  what  the  law  is.  It  destabilizes  the  rule  of  law  and 
thwarts democratic accountability.  For phrases as well as 
terms, the “linchpin of statutory interpretation is ordinary 
meaning, for that is going to be most accessible to the citi-
zenry  desirous  of  following  the  law  and  to  the  legislators 
and  their  staffs  drafting  the  legal  terms  of  the  plans 
launched by statutes and to the administrators and judges
implementing the statutory plan.”  Eskridge, Interpreting 
Law, at 81; see Scalia, A Matter of Interpretation, at 17. 

Bottom  line:  Statutory  Interpretation  101  instructs 
courts to follow ordinary meaning, not literal meaning, and 
to adhere to the ordinary meaning of phrases, not just the 
meaning of the words in a phrase. 

Second, in light of the bedrock principle that we must ad-
here to the ordinary meaning of a phrase, the question in 
this case boils down to the ordinary meaning of the phrase
“discriminate because of sex.”  Does the ordinary meaning 
of that phrase encompass discrimination because of sexual 
orientation?  The answer is plainly no. 

—————— 
than literal meaning.  That canon tells courts to avoid construing a stat-
ute  in  a  way  that  would  lead  to  absurd  consequences.    The  absurdity 
canon, properly understood, is “an implementation of (rather than . . . an 
exception to) the ordinary meaning rule.”  W. Eskridge, Interpreting Law 
72 (2016).  “What the rule of absurdity seeks to do is what all rules of 
interpretation seek to do: make sense of the text.”  A. Scalia & B. Garner, 
Reading Law 235 (2012).