The Oxford Comma Strikes Again

nessa.k13.0

Study break/procrastination material!

https://qz.com/932004/the-oxford-comma-a-maine-court-settled-the-grammar-debate-over-serial-commas-with-a-ruling-on-overtime-pay-for-dairy-truck-drivers/

This $10 million lawsuit came down to an Oxford comma, fascinating. Here's to hoping we don't make this mistake as practicing attorneys!

Zachary_P

I saw this! When in doubt about the meaning in a list, be specific, consider the implied meaning, and then always use the Oxford comma... See what I did there?

nessa.k13.0

Haha absolutely @Zachary_P . It's insane to me that the lack of punctuation cost a company so much. Hooray for the drivers!

JustDoIt

Literally was drafting a document to legal document the other day and was like...shouldn't there be another comma before the and? He was like...nahhhh.

May have to show him this tomorrow

nessa.k13.0

@JustDoIt I definitely would show it to him! It could end up being a costly mistake or at the very least it's an interesting story.

J.Y. Ping

I just heard this yesterday on Planet Money and was going to post about it.

The statute says that if you are involved in "the canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for shipment or distribution of perishable foods", then you do NOT qualify for overtime.

The question is whether truck drivers qualify for overtime. It's ambiguous.

http://www.npr.org/2017/03/23/521274657/the-10-million-lawsuit-that-hinges-on-an-oxford-comma

Alex

@"J.Y. Ping" said:
I just heard this yesterday on Planet Money and was going to post about it.

The statute says that if you are involved in "the canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for shipment or distribution of perishable foods", then you do NOT qualify for overtime.

The question is whether truck drivers qualify for overtime. It's ambiguous.

http://www.npr.org/2017/03/23/521274657/the-10-million-lawsuit-that-hinges-on-an-oxford-comma

Always was a fan of the ol' oxford comma! Thank god

nessa.k13.0

@"J.Y. Ping" said:

The statute says that if you are involved in "the canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for shipment or distribution of perishable foods", then you do NOT qualify for overtime.

The question is whether truck drivers qualify for overtime. It's ambiguous.

I'm intrigued that the appellate court ruled in a way that places clarity over the state of Maine's specific grammatic instruction on the use of the Oxford comma. I'm sure this is because I have yet to be legally educated, so it's fascinating to me that ambiguity trumps specific instruction from the state's legislative style guide, regarding the courts ruling in the drivers' favor. It also makes me curious about other cases where a lack of clarity supersedes a by-the-books-procedure in rulings. Regardless, I've learned just how important clarity is in legal writing.

xtrfalcon

Saw this the other day.... flashbacks to a video where JY explains how something came back as "malpractice."