Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Plain English: a reason to repeat conjunctions

How nonlegal readers read is sometimes not how legal readers do. Here's an example that shows that even though a lawyer would know that a list of tabulated items is disjunctive because there is an or before the last item, that is not obvious to nonlegal readers.

I received this question:

Consider this statute:
    (e) Except as provided in subdivision (d), [blah, blah, blah] unless the agent has met the applicable standard of conduct by:
    1. A majority vote of a quorum consisting of directors who are not parties to such proceeding;
    2. Approval of the members with the persons to be indemnified not being entitled to vote thereon; or
    3. Approval of the court in which such proceeding is or was pending.
Is the statute to be interpreted as "1 and 2 or 3"?

Or is it to be interpreted as "1 or 2 or 3"?
____________

This realization hit me again when I was testing jury instructions, and it became clear that the jurors were reading

a,
b,
c, and
d

As "any one of a, b, c, or d."

What to do? We started putting an and after each item:

a, and
b, and
c, and
d

It worked. In the next test, we could hear them discussing how "all these things have to be proved."

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