The Language of Statutes: Laws and Their Interpretation »

Lawrence M. Solan is Don Forchelli Professor of Law and director of the Center for the Study of Law, Language, and Cognition at Brooklyn Law School. He is the author of two other books, also published by the University of Chicago Press.

"Pulling the rug out from under debates about interpretation, The Language of Statutes joins together learning from law, linguistics, and cognitive science to illuminate the fundamental issues and problems in this highly contested area. Here, Lawrence M. Solan argues that statutory interpretation is alive, well, and not in need of the major overhaul that many have suggested. Rather, he suggests, the majority of people understand their rights and obligations most of the time, with difficult cases occurring in circumstances that we can predict from understanding when our minds do not work in a lawlike way." We are capable of writing crisp yet flexible laws, but Solan explains that difficult cases result when the ways in which our cognitive and linguistic faculties are structured fail to produce a single, clear interpretation. Though we are predisposed to absorb new situations into categories we have previously formed, our conceptualization is not always as crisp as the legislative and judicial realms demand. In such cases, Solan contends that other values, most importantly legislative intent, must come into play. The Language of Statutes provides an excellent introduction to statutory interpretation, rejecting the extreme arguments that judges have either too much or too little leeway, and explaining how and why a certain number of interpretive problems are simply inevitable.

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1 Laws and Judges 1

Chapter 2 Why We Need to Interpret Statutes 16

Chapter 3 Definitions, Ordinary Meaning, and Respect for the Legislature 50

Chapter 4 The Intent of the Legislature 82

Chapter 5 Stability, Dynamism, and Other Values 120

Chapter 6 Who Should Interpret Statutes? 160

Chapter 7 Jurors as Statutory Interpreters 196

Chapter 8 Legislatures, Judges, and Statutory Interpretation 223

Appendix. Two Mail Fraud Jury Instructions 231

Notes 237

List of Cases 283

Index 285