Like the Court of Appeals, we do not think that either of these contentions, standing alone, is conclusive.
The article "a" could be thought to convey merely that one bond must unite only the members
of each group in a multiplegroup credit union, and not all of the members in the credit union taken together.
See 90 F. 3d, at 528. Similarly, the plural word "groups" could be thought to refer not merely
to multiple groups in a particular credit union, but rather to every single "group" that forms
a distinct credit union under the FCUA. See ibid. Nonetheless, as the Court of Appeals correctly
recognized, additional considerations compel the conclusion that the same common bond of occupation must
unite all of the members of an occupationally defined federal credit union.
First, the NCUA’s current interpretation makes the phrase "common bond" surplusage when applied
to a federal credit union made up of multiple unrelated employer groups, because each "group"
in such a credit union already has its own "common bond." See ibid. To use the facts
of this case, the employees of AT&T and the employees of the American Tobacco Company each already
had a "common bond" before being joined together as members of ATTF. The former were bonded
because they worked for AT&T, and the latter were bonded because they worked for the American Tobacco
Company. If the phrase "common bond" is to be given any meaning when these employees are joined
together, a different "common bond"—one extending to each and every employee considered together—must
be found to unite them. Such a "common bond" exists when employees of different subsidiaries
of the same company are joined together in a federal credit union; it does not exist, however, when employees
of unrelated companies are so joined. See ibid. Put another way, in the multiple employer group
context, the NCUA has read the statute as though it merely stated that "[f]ederal credit union membership
shall be limited to occupational groups," but that is simply not what the statute provides.
Second, the NCUA’s interpretation violates the established canon of construction that similar language
contained within the same section of a statute must be accorded a consistent meaning. See Wisconsin
Dept. of Revenue v. William Wrigley, Jr., Co., 505 U.S. 214, 225 (1992). Section 109 consists
of two parallel clauses: Federal credit union membership is limited "to groups having a common bond
of occupation or association, or to groups within a well-defined neighborhood, community, or rural district."
12 U.S.C. §1759 (emphasis added). The NCUA concedes that even though the second limitation permits geographically
defined credit unions to have as members more than one "group," all of the groups must come
from the same "neighborhood, community, or rural district." See Brief for Petitioner NCUA 37.
The reason that the NCUA has never interpreted, and does not contend that it could interpret, the geographical
limitation to allow a credit union to be composed of members from an unlimited number of unrelated geographic
units, is that to do so would render the geographical limitation meaningless. Under established principles
of statutory interpretation, we must interpret the occupational limitation in the same way. Petitioners
have advanced one reason why we should interpret the occupational limitation differently. They contend
that whereas the geographical limitation uses the word "within" and is thus "prepositional,"
the occupational limitation uses the word "having" and is thus "participial" (and
therefore less limiting). See Brief for Petitioner NCUA 31. There is, however, no reason why a
participial phrase is inherently more open-ended than a prepositional one; indeed, certain participial
phrases can narrow the relevant universe in an exceedingly effective manner—for example, "persons
having February 29th as a wedding anniversary." Reading the two parallel clauses in the same way,
we must conclude that, just as all members of a geographically defined federal credit union must be drawn
from the same "neighborhood, community or rural district," members of an occupationally defined
federal credit union must be united by the same "common bond of occupation."
Finally, by its terms, §109 requires that membership in federal credit unions "shall be limited."
The NCUA’s interpretation—under which a common bond of occupation must unite only the members of each
unrelated employer group—has the potential to read these words out of the statute entirely. The NCUA has
not contested that, under its current interpretation, it would be permissible to grant a charter to a
conglomerate credit union whose members would include the employees of every company in the United States.
Nor can it: Each company’s employees would be a "group," and each such "group" would
have its own "common bond of occupation." Section 109, however, cannot be considered a limitation
on credit union membership if at the same time it permits such a limitless result.
For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that the NCUA’s current interpretation of §109 is contrary to the
unambiguously expressed intent of Congress and is thus impermissible under the first step of Chevron.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is therefore affirmed.
Affirmed.
JUSTICE O’CONNER, with whom JUSTICE STEVENS, JUSTICE SOUTER, and JUSTICE BREYER join, dissenting.
In determining that respondents have standing under the zone-of-interests test to challenge the National
Credit Union Administration’s (NCUA’s) interpretation of the "common bond" provision of the
Federal Credit Union Act (FCUA), 12 U.S.C. §1759 the Court applies the test in a manner that is contrary
to our decisions and, more importantly, that all but eviscerates the zone-of-interests requirement. In
my view, under a proper conception of the inquiry, "the interest sought to be protected by"
respondents in this case is not "arguably within the zone of interests to be protected" by the
common bond provision. Association of Data Processing Service Organizations, Inc. v. Camp,
397 U.S. 150, 153 (1970).
Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.
I
Respondents brought this suit under §10(a) of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. §702. To
establish their standing to sue here, respondents must demonstrate that they are "adversely affected
or aggrieved by agency action within the meaning of a relevant statute." Ibid.; see Air
Courier Conference v. Postal Workers, 498 U.S. 517, 523 (1991); Lujan v. National
Wildlife Federation, 497 U.S. 871, 882–883 (1990). The two aspects of that requirement correspond
to the familiar concepts in standing doctrine of "injury in fact" under Article III of the Constitution
and "zone of interests" under our prudential standing principles. See, e.g., Bennett
v. Spear, 520 U. S. , (1997) (slip op., at 6). . . .
The "injury respondents complain of," as the Court explains, is that the NCUA’s interpretation
of the common bond provision "allows persons who might otherwise be their customers to be . . . customers"
of petitioner AT&T Family Federal Credit Union. Ante, at 7, n. 4. Put another way, the injury is a
loss of respondents’ customer base to a competing entity, or more generally, an injury to respondents’
commercial interest as a competitor. The relevant question under the zone-of-interests test, then, is
whether injury to respondents’ commercial interest as a competitor "falls within the zone of interests
sought to be protected by the [common bond] provision." E.g., Air Courier, supra, at 523–524.
For instance, in Data Processing, where the plaintiffs—like respondents here—alleged competitive
injury to their commercial interest, we found that the plaintiffs had standing because "their commercial
interest was sought to be protected by the . . . provision which they alleged had been violated."
Bennett, supra, at (slip op., at 21) (discussing Data Processing). . . .
Under the Court’s approach, every litigant who establishes injury in fact under Article III will automatically
satisfy the zone-of-interests requirement, rendering the zone-of-interests test ineffectual. See Air
Courier, supra, at 524 ("mistak[e]" to "conflat[e] the zone-of-interests test with
injury in fact"). That result stems from the Court’s articulation of the relevant "interest."
In stating that the common bond provision protects an "interest in limiting the markets that federal
credit unions can serve," ante, at 12, the Court presumably uses the term "markets"
in the sense of customer markets, as opposed to, for instance, product markets: The common bond requirement
and the provisions prohibiting credit unions from serving nonmembers combine to limit the customers a
credit union can serve, not the services a credit union can offer. |
