e-journal

AMBIGUITY ABOUT AMBIGUITY: AN EMPIRICAL INQUIRY INTO LEGAL INTERPRETATION

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ABSTRACT
Most scholarship on statutory interpretation discusses what courts should do with
ambiguous statutes. This paper investigates the crucial and analytically prior question
of what ambiguity in law is . Does a claim that a text is ambiguous mean the judge
is uncertain about its meaning? Or is it a claim that ordinary readers of English, as a
group, would disagree about what the text means? This distinction is of considerable
theoretical interest. It also turns out to be highly consequential as a practical matter.
To demonstrate, we developed a survey instrument for exploring determinations
of ambiguity and administered it to nearly 1,000 law students. We fi nd that asking
respondents whether a statute is “ambiguous” in their own minds produces answers
that are strongly biased by their policy preferences. But asking respondents whether
the text would likely be read the same way by ordinary readers of English does not
produce answers biased in this way. This discrepancy leads to important questions
about which of those two ways of thinking about ambiguity is more legally relevant. It
also has potential implications for how cases are decided and for how law is taught.

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Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

Journal of Legal Analysis

No. Panggil

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Penerbit

Oxford : Oxford University Press on behalf of The John M. Olin Center for Law., 2010

Deskripsi Fisik

Spring 2010: Volume 2, Number 1 , Journal of Legal Analysis

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

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Klasifikasi

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Tipe Isi

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Tipe Media

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Tipe Pembawa

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Edisi

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Subjek

HUKUM

Info Detail Spesifik

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Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

agus

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