Department of Housing & Urban Development v. Rucker

ant’s apartment unit when the tenant did not know of and had no reason to know of, the drug-related criminal activity.” App. to Pet. for Cert, in No. 00-1770, pp. 165a-166a.

A panel of the Court of Appeals reversed, holding that § 1437d(Z)(6) unambiguously permits the eviction of tenants who violate the lease provision, regardless of whether the tenant was personally aware of the drug activity, and that the statute is constitutional. See Rucker v. Davis, 203 F. 3d 627 (CA9 2000). An en banc panel of the Court of Appeals reversed and affirmed the District Court’s grant of the preliminary injunction. See Rucker v. Davis, 237 F. 3d 1113 (2001). That court held that HUD’s interpretation permitting the eviction of so-called “innocent” tenants “is inconsistent with Congressional intent and must be rejected” under the first step of Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837 , 842-843 (1984). 237 F. 3d, at 1126 .

We granted certiorari, 533 U. S. 976 (2001), 534 U. S. 813 (2001), and now reverse, holding that 42 U. S. C. § 1437d(Z)(6) unambiguously requires lease terms that vest local public housing authorities with the discretion to evict tenants for the drug-related activity of household members and guests whether or not the tenant knew, or should have known, about the activity.

That this is so seems evident from the plain language of the statute. It provides that “[e]ach public housing agency shall utilize leases which . . . provide that . . . any drug-related criminal activity on or off such premises, engaged in by a public housing tenant, any member of the tenant’s household, or any guest or other person under the tenant’s control, shall be cause for termination of tenancy.” 42 U. S. C. § 1437d(Z)(6) (1994 ed., Supp. V). The en banc Court of Appeals thought the statute did not address “the level of personal knowledge or fault that is required for eviction.” 237 F. 3d, at 1120 . Yet Congress’ decision not to impose any

qualification in the statute, combined with its use of the term “any” to modify “drug-related criminal activity,” precludes any knowledge requirement. See United States v. Monsanto, 491 U. S. 600 , 609 (1989). As we have explained, “the word ‘any’ has an expansive meaning, that is, ‘one or some indiscriminately of whatever kind.’ ” United States v. Gonzales, 520 U. S. 1 , 5 (1997). Thus, any drug-related activity engaged in by the specified persons is grounds for termination, not just drug-related activity that the tenant knew, or should have known, about.

The en banc Court of Appeals also thought it possible that “under the tenant’s control” modifies not just “other person,” but also “member%-of the tenant’s household” and “guest.” 237 F. 3d, at 1120 . The court ultimately adopted this reading, concluding that the statute prohibits eviction where the tenant, “for a lack of knowledge or other reason, could not realistically exercise control over the conduct of a household member or guesti” Id., at 1126 . But this interpretation runs counter to basic rules of grammar. The disjunctive “or” means that the qualification applies only to “other person.” Indeed, the view that “under the tenant’s control” modifies everything coming before it in the sentence would result in the nonsensical reading that the statute applies to “a public housing tenant . . . under the tenant’s control.” HUD offers a convincing explanation for the grammatical imperative that “under the tenant’s control” modifies only “other person”: “by ‘control,’ the statute means control in the sense that the tenant has permitted access to the premises.” 66 Fed. Reg. 28781 (2001). Implicit in the terms “household member” or “guest” is that access to the premises has been granted by the tenant. Thus, the plain language of § 1437d(Z)(6) requires leases that grant public housing authorities the discretion to terminate tenancy without regard to the tenant’s knowledge of the drug-related criminal activity.

Comparing §1437d(Z)(6) to a related statutory provision reinforces the unambiguous text. The civil forfeiture statute that makes all leasehold interests subject to forfeiture when used to commit drug-related criminal activities expressly exempts tenants who had no knowledge of the activity: “[N]o property shall be forfeited under this paragraph ... by reason of any act or omission established by that owner to have been committed or omitted without the knowledge or consent of that owner.” 21 U. S. C. § 881 (a)(7) (1994 ed.). Because this forfeiture provision was amended in the same Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 that created 42 U. S. C. § 1437d(Z)(6), the en banc Court of Appeals thought Congress “meant them to be read consistently” so that the knowledge requirement should be read into the eviction provision. 237 F. 3d, at 1121-1122 . But the two sections deal with distinctly different matters. The “innocent owner” defense for drug forfeiture cases was already in existence prior to 1988 as part of 21 U. S. C. § 881 (a)(7). All that Congress did in the 1988 Act was to add leasehold interests to the property interests that might be forfeited under the drug statute. And if such a forfeiture action were to be brought against a leasehold interest, it would be subject to the pre-existing “innocent owner” defense. But 42 U. S. C. § 1437 (d)(Z)(6), with which we deal here, is a quite different measure. It is entirely reasonable to think that the Government, when seeking to transfer private property to itself in a forfeiture proceeding, should be subject to an “innocent owner defense,” while it should not be when acting as a landlord in a public housing project. The forfeiture provision shows that Congress knew exactly how to provide an “innocent owner” defense. It did not provide one in § 1437d(Z)(6).

The en banc Court of Appeals next resorted to legislative history. The Court of Appeals correctly recognized that reference to legislative history is inappropriate when the text of the statute is unambiguous. 237 F. 3d, at 1123 . Given that the en banc Court of Appeals’ finding of textual ambigú

ant who violated the lease provision. Instead, it entrusts that decision to the local public housing authorities, who are in the best position to take account of, among other things, the degree to which the housing project suffers from “rampant drug-related or violent crime,” 42 U. S. C. § 11901 (2) (1994 ed. and Supp. V), “the seriousness of the offending action,” 66 Fed. Reg., at 28803 , and “the extent to which the leaseholder has ... taken all reasonable steps to prevent or mitigate the offending action,” ibid. It is not “absurd” that a local housing authority may sometimes evict a tenant who had no knowledge of the drug-related activity. Such “no-fault” eviction is a common “incident of tenant responsibility under normal landlord-tenant law and practice.” 56 Fed. Reg., at 51567 . Strict liability maximizes deterrence and eases enforcement difficulties. See Pacific Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. Haslip, 499 U. S. 1 , 14 (1991).

And, of course, there is an obvious reason why Congress would have permitted local public housing authorities to conduct no-fault evictions: Regardless of knowledge, a tenant who “cannot control drug crime, or other criminal activities by a household member which threaten health or safety of other residents, is a threat to other residents and the project.” 56 Fed. Reg., at 51567 . With drugs leading to “murders, muggings, and other forms of violence against tenants,” and to the “deterioration of the physical environment that requires substantial government expenditures,” 42 U. S. C. § 11901 (4) (1994 ed., Supp. V), it was reasonable for Congress to permit no-fault evictions in order to “provide public and other federally assisted low-income housing that is decent, safe, and free from illegal drugs,” § 11901(1) (1994 ed.).

In another effort to avoid the plain meaning of the statute, the en banc Court of Appeals invoked the canon of constitutional avoidance. But that canon “has no application in the absence of statutory ambiguity.” United States v. Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative, 532 U. S. 483 , 494 (2001). “Any other conclusion, while purporting to be an exercise in

judicial restraint, would trench upon the legislative powers vested in Congress by Art. I, §1, of the Constitution.” United States v. Albertini, 472 U. S. 675 , 680 (1985). There are, moreover, no “serious constitutional doubts” about Congress’ affording local public housing authorities the discretion to conduct no-fault evictions for drug-related crime. Reno v. Flores, 507 U. S. 292 , 314, n. 9 (1993) (emphasis deleted).

The en banc Court of Appeals held that HUD’s interpretation “raise[s] serious questions under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment,” because it permits “tenants to be deprived of their property interest without any relationship to individual wrongdoing.” 237 F. 3d, at 1124-1125 (citing Scales v. United States, 367 U. S. 203 , 224-225 (1961); Southwestern Telegraph & Telephone Co. v. Danaher, 238 U. S. 482 (1915)). But both of these cases deal with the acts of government as sovereign. In Scales, the United States criminally charged the defendant with knowing membership in an organization that advocated the overthrow of the United States Government. In Danaher, an Arkansas statute forbade discrimination among customers of a telephone company. The situation in the present cases is entirely different. The government is not attempting to criminally punish or civilly regulate respondents as members of the general populace. It is instead acting as a landlord of property that it owns, invoking a clause in a lease to which respondents have agreed and which Congress has expressly required. Scales and Danaher east no constitutional doubt on such actions.

The Court of Appeals sought to bolster its discussion of constitutional doubt by pointing to the fact that respondents have a property interest in their leasehold interest, citing Greene v. Lindsey, 456 U. S. 444 (1982). This is undoubtedly true, and Greene held that an effort to deprive a tenant of such a right without proper notice violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. But, in the present