Constitutional avoidance
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 232 U.S. 531 - Plymouth Coal Company v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania T · 1914Most cited · 360 citing opinions
statutory construction
It is a general and fundamental rule that if a statute be reasonably susceptible of two interpretations, one of which would render it unconstitutional and the other valid, it is the duty of the courts to adopt that construction which will uphold its validity; there being a strong presumption that the law-making body has intended to act within, and not in excess of, its constitutional authority.
How often courts cite the case defining “Constitutional avoidance”
Court decisions citing the opinion that defined “Constitutional avoidance” — 357 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining case as a whole, not verified uses of the term. The dip in the most recent years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the latest years.