Freshman Seminar







Sanford Schane









Ambiguity
and Misunderstanding in the Law







 















The law is a profession of words.*  By means
of words contracts are created, statutes are enacted, and constitutions
come into existence. Yet, in spite of all good intentions, the meanings
of the words found in documents are not always clear and unequivocal, and
they may lend themselves to various interpretations by different individuals.



When differences in understanding are irresolvable, the parties having
an interest in what is meant may end up in litigation and ask the court
to come up with its interpretation. In the eyes of the law, when this kind
of situation arises, the contract or the legislative act contains "ambiguity
".



In this seminar we will examine three actual court cases claimed to
contain "ambiguous words". Using these cases, we will seek answers to the
following questions: What does the term "ambiguity" mean to judges and
lawyers? How do the three cases differ in the type of misunderstanding
that arose? How do language specialists (linguists) define ambiguity and
do their concepts help us to understand what is going on in the law? Why
are drafters of legal documents often unaware of the potential for ambiguous
language?




















* This is the opening sentence in David Mellinkoff's
monumental work,



The
Language of the Law, Little, Brown & Co., Boston: 1963.