Opinion ID: 69187
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: To implement the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards.

Text: Pub.L. No. 91-368, 84 Stat. 692 (1970) ( emphasis added). This is an Act of Congress. The legislation is plainly labeled as an Act of Congress, and no ambiguity on this point is cited by the court or by the parties. The preeminent canon of statutory interpretation requires us to `presume that [the] legislature says in a statute what it means and means in a statute what it says there.' BedRoc Ltd. v. United States, 541 U.S. 176, 183, 124 S.Ct. 1587, 158 L.Ed.2d 338 (2004) (quoting Conn. Nat'l Bank v. Germain, 503 U.S. 249, 253-54, 112 S.Ct. 1146, 117 L.Ed.2d 391 (1992)). [O]ur inquiry begins with the statutory text, and ends there as well if the text is unambiguous.  Id. (citing cases) (emphasis added). In addition, as discussed at length in Part I, the Supreme Court recognizes the implementing legislation of a non-self-executing treaty as an Act of Congress. Missouri v. Holland, 252 U.S. 416, 430, 431, 432, 435, 40 S.Ct. 382, 64 L.Ed. 641 (1920). Therefore, the court's exercise in statutory interpretation should have ended with the plain language of the statute, and its foray into the realm of policy considerations is improper. Because the court is convinced that the straightforward interpretation of the words Act of Congress, would produce an untenable result, the court's analysis veers off course into a fruitless search for Congress's true intent. As a result, the court ends up supplanting the plain meaning of the unambiguous term Act of Congress with a strained interpretation aimed at protecting important federal policies. First, the court resorts to speculation about what Congress must have had in mind when it included the words Act of Congress in the reverse-preemption provision of the McCarran-Ferguson Act. The court concludes that there is no apparent reason ... why Congress would have chosen to distinguish in the McCarran-Ferguson Act between treaties that are self-executing and those that are not self-executing but have been implemented. Op. at 723. It therefore considers it unlikely that in passing McCarran-Ferguson, Congress intended any future treaty implemented by an Act of Congress to be abrogated to the extent that the treaty conflicted ... with a state law regulating... insurance if Congress's implementing legislation did not expressly save the treaty from reverse-preemption. Op. at 729. [28] This interpretation contradicts the plain language of the McCarran-Ferguson Act. In the Act, Congress prescribed a clear-statement rule for federal statutes affecting the business of insurance: uncertain provisions are to be construed not to preempt state insurance law. See generally U.S. Dep't. of Treasury v. Fabe, 508 U.S. 491, 507, 113 S.Ct. 2202, 124 L.Ed.2d 449 (1993). In fact, Congress explicitly determined that the continued regulation and taxation by the several States of the business of insurance is in the public interest. § 1011. It is possible that Congress intended this policy judgment to control the interpretation of Acts of Congress generally, whether or not they implemented treaties. It is also possible that Congress never considered whether Acts of Congress implementing treaties ought to be subject to the clear-statement rule of McCarran-Ferguson. It does not matter which, if either, of these narratives is correct. Such speculation has no place when we interpret a statute to say what it means and mean what it says. BedRoc, 541 U.S. at 183, 124 S.Ct. 1587; see also Green v. Biddle, 8 Wheat. 1, 21 U.S. 1, 89-90, 5 L.Ed. 547 (1823) ([W]here the words of a law, treaty, or contract, have a plain and obvious meaning, all construction, in hostility with such meaning, is excluded. This is a maxim of law, and a dictate of common sense.). There is a lively debate in the judiciary and the legal academy over the universe of interpretive methods properly available to a court where the text of a statute is unclear, but that debate is irrelevant here. How much clearer than No Act of Congress can Congress be? The court contends that reading the words Act of Congress to include the Convention Act is untenable, and states that it does not consider it reasonable to embrace such a reading of the statute. Op. at 723-24. Yet there is no citation to any rule of construction that would make these judgments relevant to the interpretive task, as policy-based interpretive techniques have no place in the court's analysis where the language of the statute is clear. [29] Where the statutory text is unambiguous, there is neither need nor warrant to look elsewhere. Am. Trucking Ass'ns, Inc. v. ICC, 659 F.2d 452, 459 (5th Cir. Unit A Oct.1981) (emphasis added). A court should depart from the official text of the statute and seek extrinsic aids to its meaning only if the language is not clear or if apparent clarity of language leads to absurdity of result when applied. Id. (emphasis added and citation omitted). In light of such clear directives, the court's approach is aberrant. In addition to the court's improper inquiry into what Congress intended when it wrote the unambiguous words Act of Congress, the court expounds for some length-indeed for an entire section-upon the federal policies protected by its interpretation. See Op. at 730-31 (Our conclusion that referral to arbitration is proper in this case is bolstered by the congressionally sanctioned national policy favoring arbitration of international commercial agreements.). But in light of a clearly worded statute, this factor cannot support the weight that the court's analysis forces it to bear. Indeed, even if such policy considerations were relevant to the interpretation of an unambiguous statute, and they are not, the court's analysis barely acknowledges the state interest that was significant enough to give rise to the rare reverse-preempting provision of the McCarran-Ferguson Act in the first place. [30] IV. In summary, I would follow the holding of the Second Circuit (the only circuit to have squarely decided this question) in Stephens. In a domestic court, a treaty that Congress enacts is not law itself, and in fact it is the statute that counts and the statute amounts to a standard congressional act. I would hold that: 1. The non-self-executing Convention [31] cannot itself provide a rule of decision for U.S. courts; only its implementing legislation is capable preempting state law. 2. The Convention Act implementing the Convention is an Act of Congress that does not specifically relate[] to the business of insurance; 3. The McCarran-Ferguson Act provides that No Act of Congress preempts state law unless the Act of Congress specifically relates to the business of insurance; 4. The Louisiana statute is a[] law enacted by a[] State for the purpose of regulating the business of insurance that the Convention Act would invalidate, impair, or supersede; 5. The Convention Act is therefore reverse-preempted by the Louisiana statute by operation of the McCarran-Ferguson Act; and 6. Accordingly, the district court correctly ruled that no federal law prevents Louisiana Revised Statute § 22:629 from applying in this case.       The court today has declined the opportunity to align itself with the Second Circuit and the Supreme Court's jurisprudence in this area. It has muddied the waters of our statutory interpretation jurisprudence, by reasoning on an ad hoc basis from its own conception of what is reasonable, or []likely for Congress to have intended, rather than looking to what Congress said. Simultaneously, with little doctrinal discussion, it has applied a non-self-executing treaty as domestic, preemptive law in an unprecedented manner. As a result, at least until our superiors speak, we leave the state of the law in [Supremacy] Clause purgatory. Green v. Haskell Co. Bd. of Comm'rs, 574 F.3d 1235, 1245 (10th Cir.2009) (Gorsuch, J., dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). Respectfully, I dissent.