Section 7

Citation: Section 7
Parent Document: Bostock v. Clayton County, 590 U.S. 644 (2020)
Jurisdiction: United States (federal)
Effective Date: 2020-06-15
Original Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4760997/bostock-v-clayton-county/ ↗

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 The Court refused a reading of “mineral deposits” that
would include water, even if “water is a ‘mineral,’ in
the broadest sense of that word,” because it would
bring about a “major . . . alteration in established legal
relationships based on nothing more than an overly lit-
eral reading of a statute, without any regard for its
context or history.” Andrus v. Charlestone Stone Prod-
ucts Co., 436 U. S. 604, 610, 616 (1978).
 The Court declined to interpret “facilitating” a drug
distribution crime in a way that would cover purchas-
ing drugs, because the “literal sweep of ‘facilitate’ sits
uncomfortably with common usage.” Abuelhawa v.
United States, 556 U. S. 816, 820 (2009).
 The Court rebuffed a literal reading of “personnel
rules” that would encompass any rules that personnel
must follow (as opposed to human resources rules
about personnel), and stated that no one “using ordi-
nary language would describe” personnel rules “in this
manner.” Milner v. Department of Navy, 562 U. S. 562,
578 (2011).
 The Court explained that, when construing statutory
phrases such as “arising from,” it avoids “uncritical lit-
eralism leading to results that no sensible person could
have intended.” Jennings v. Rodriguez, 583 U. S. ___,
___–___ (2018) (plurality opinion) (slip op., at 9–10) (in-
ternal quotation marks omitted).
Those cases exemplify a deeply rooted principle: When
there is a divide between the literal meaning and the ordi-
nary meaning, courts must follow the ordinary meaning.
Next is a critical point of emphasis in this case. The dif-
ference between literal and ordinary meaning becomes es-
pecially important when—as in this case—judges consider
phrases in statutes. (Recall that the shorthand version of
the phrase at issue here is “discriminate because of sex.”)3
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3 The full phrasing of the statute is provided above in footnote 2. This
Cite as: 590 U. S. ____ (2020) 9 KAVANAUGH, J., dissenting

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