The Language of Statutes: Laws and Their Interpretation
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"Pulling the rug out from under debates about interpretation, The Language of Statutes joins together learning from law, linguistics, and cognitive science to illuminate the fundamental issues and problems in this highly contested area. Here, Lawrence M. Solan argues that statutory interpretation is alive, well, and not in need of the major overhaul that many have suggested. Rather, he suggests, the majority of people understand their rights and obligations most of the time, with difficult cases occurring in circumstances that we can predict from understanding when our minds do not work in a lawlike way." We are capable of writing crisp yet flexible laws, but Solan explains that difficult cases result when the ways in which our cognitive and linguistic faculties are structured fail to produce a single, clear interpretation. Though we are predisposed to absorb new situations into categories we have previously formed, our conceptualization is not always as crisp as the legislative and judicial realms demand. In such cases, Solan contends that other values, most importantly legislative intent, must come into play. The Language of Statutes provides an excellent introduction to statutory interpretation, rejecting the extreme arguments that judges have either too much or too little leeway, and explaining how and why a certain number of interpretive problems are simply inevitable.
AcknowledgmentsChapter 1 Laws and Judges 1Chapter 2 Why We Need to Interpret Statutes 16Chapter 3 Definitions, Ordinary Meaning, and Respect for the Legislature 50Chapter 4 The Intent of the Legislature 82Chapter 5 Stability, Dynamism, and Other Values 120Chapter 6 Who Should Interpret Statutes? 160Chapter 7 Jurors as Statutory Interpreters 196Chapter 8 Legislatures, Judges, and Statutory Interpretation 223Appendix. Two Mail Fraud Jury Instructions 231Notes 237List of Cases 283Index 285
