Literal statutory interpretations are defeasible starting points

Evidence

Where this latter view prevails, where judges are trusted to pursue reason even if occasionally they get it wrong, it is best to understand the literal interpretation of a statute as defeasible, a term we encountered in exploring the common law’s methods in Chapter 6. The term, which originally comes from property law and is now frequently found in jurisprudential writing, suggests that there are some circumstances in which a rule or principle or legally indicated outcome might be defeated. In the context of statutory interpretation, therefore, the view would be that the literal interpretation is still the standard and still the approach in the first instance. But not only when the literal interpretation is absurd, but also when the literal interpretation yields an outcome inconsistent with common sense, or inconsistent with probable legislative intention, or inconsistent with the statute’s purpose, the judge may depart from literal meaning in order to produce the most reasonable result. — Frederick Schauer, Thinking Like a Lawyer, 303

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines defeasibility and connects it to the property-law origin and the Chapter 6 discussion.
• XREF: connects to: Literal application of legal rules sometimes produces absurd against-purpose outcomes — Frederick Schauer, Thinking Like a Lawyer, 284; Judicial rules should not be applied to dryly logical extremes — Ruggero J. Aldisert, Agatha D. Aldisert, Logic for Lawyers- A Guide to Clear…, 144; Formalism might be seen not as embodying an embarrassingly crude understanding of communication, but as a sensible and highly pragmatic response to institutional limits of generalist judges and institutional capacities of Congress. We believe that in considering these debates, an institutional focus is helpful, not because it always resolves them, but because it shows what many disputes are really about, and because it casts light on central questions that might otherwise be obscured. At a minimum, we urge that an appreciation of institutional capacities and dynamic effects is a necessary part of any theory of legal interpretation. A theory that neglects those issues is seriously incomplete. We also hope that future debates about interpretation will focus on institutional issues, where it remains possible to make a great deal of progress, not least by examining empirical issues, identified below, on which much remains to be learned. (+13 more)

Related

• Judges should use consequences to guide statutory interpretation. (similarity 0.83)
• Formalism might be seen not as embodying an embarrassingly crude understanding of communication, but as a sensible and highly pragmatic response to institutional limits of generalist judges and… (similarity 0.82)
• …it casts light on central questions that might otherwise be obscured. At a minimum, we urge that an appreciation of institutional capacities and dynamics is essential to understanding the… (similarity 0.82)
• Indeed it is possible that specialized interpreters should reject formalism but that nonspecialists should embrace it; and academic specialists are unlikely to appreciate this point. Our principal… (similarity 0.80)
• Once we disentangle and examine the various strands of formalism and recognize the way in which formalism, rules, and language are conceptually intertwined, it turns out that there is something,… (similarity 0.79)
• The pejorative connotations of the word formalism, in concert with the lack of agreement on the word’s descriptive content, make it tempting to conclude that formalist is the adjective used to… (similarity 0.78)
• Interpretive debates require attention to institutional capacities and dynamic effects. (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Formalism might be seen not as embodying an embarrassingly crude understanding of communication, but as a sensible and highly pragmatic response to institutional limits of generalist judges and… #expands (0.70)
• Indeed it is possible that specialized interpreters should reject formalism but that nonspecialists should embrace it; and academic specialists are unlikely to appreciate this point. Our principal… #expands (0.65)
• Judicial rules should not be applied to dryly logical extremes #expands (0.60) — Ruggero J. Aldisert, Agatha D. Aldisert, Logic for Lawyers- A Guide to Clear…, 144
• Judges should use consequences to guide statutory interpretation. #qualifies (0.60) — Richard A. Posner, What Has Pragmatism to Offer Law?, 116