A statute’s purpose is qualified by the costs its legislature contemplated
Evidence
The statutory purpose would appear to have been to assure safety of travel. Why should that not be extended to automobiles, if the words permit of such extension? But the court found a qualification of such purpose: The legislature had declared for safety of travel in the face of costs of highway maintenance for horse-drawn vehicles. It should not be held to have so declared as to much higher costs for auto travel, not foreseen because not foreseeable. — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process, 1432
Categorization
- DEEPTHINKING: The idea that purpose is internally qualified by the cost frame under which it was legislated — courts read safety statutes as ‘safe subject to the maintenance costs then foreseeable’ — is a genuinely dense, reusable analytical subtlety for the interpretive-method material.
- XREF: connects to: Absurd consequences outweigh the doctrine of strict construction of penal statutes. — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process: Basic Problems in…, 1211; Agencies should first ask whether cost-benefit analysis fits the statute at all — Douglas A. Kysar, Regulating from Nowhere: Environmental…, 670; No statute can be interpreted without attributing purpose to it. — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process: Basic Problems in…, 880 (+4 more)
Broader Connections
- Legislative history supplies evidence of an enactment’s purpose and intended meaning
#expands(0.85) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 2460 - Courts should attribute purpose to statutes and interpret words to serve it
#qualifies(0.80) — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process, 3499 - Refusing to make law itself becomes a lawmaking act with systemic costs
#complicates(0.72) — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process, 1873