State v. Byers

Decided July 3, 2003

Wisconsin Supreme Court · decided 2003-07-03

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“rule, are tools, not rules. They are all designed to reach one fundamental goal: discerning legislative intent. Ignoring relevant evidence on legislative intent in the name of”

quoted by 1 later decision, including State v. Peters

“William Jefferson Clinton. ¶ 39. I write only to emphasize that canons .of statutory construction, such as the”

quoted by 1 later decision, including State v. Peters

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 2003-07-03

How this case has been cited

Cited by 31 later decisions — most recently June 2022 · most notably State Ex Rel. Kalal v. Circuit Court for Dane County (2004), Teschendorf v. State Farm Ins. Companies (2006)

31 state decisions

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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*141WILLIAM A. BABLITCH, J.

¶1¶ 59. (concurring).

¶2"That depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is." William Jefferson Clinton.

¶3¶ 60. I write only to emphasize that canons of statutory construction, such as the "plain meaning" rule, are tools, not rules. They are all designed to reach one fundamental goal: discerning legislative intent. Ignoring relevant evidence on legislative intent in the name of "plain meaning" will necessarily at times lead to an interpretation that is completely contrary to what the legislature intended.

¶4¶ 61. Language is inherently ambiguous— perhaps not as ambiguous as the quotation above would have us believe, but the quote makes a point: plain meaning is frequently in the eye of the beholder. What is plain to one may be ambiguous to another. If good evidence as to legislative intent is present, why not use it? Accordingly, I join Chief Justice Abrahamson's concurrence.