Courts and commentators occasionally say that resort to legislative history is a crock. (You listening, Justice Scalia?) For those doubters, I'd suggest reading this opinion.
It's a classic case where legislative history matters. Could you reach the same result by relying exclusively upon the statutory language? Sure. You could. And a portion of Justice Mallano's opinion does precisely that.
But relying entirely upon the text would leave a lot of doubt. Resort to legislative history puts most, if not all, of that doubt to rest. Even for someone -- like me -- who was a little dubious about the opinion's holding when he first started reading it.
A nice, tight opinion.
