Constitutional avoidance canon
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 300 U.S. 440 - Wright v. Vinton Branch of Mountain Trust Bank · 1937Most cited · 908 citing opinions
When the validity of an act of the Congress is drawn in question, and even if a serious doubt of constitutionality is raised, it is a cardinal principle that this Court will first ascertain whether a construction of the statute is fairly possible by which the question may be avoided.
How the Supreme Court has restated “Constitutional avoidance canon”
Each Supreme Court definition of “Constitutional avoidance canon,” sized by how often later courts cited it. “Change” is measured by wording overlap with earlier definitions — a rough signal, not a semantic judgment.
How often courts cite the cases defining “Constitutional avoidance canon”
Court decisions citing the 3 opinions that defined “Constitutional avoidance canon” — 1,281 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining cases 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.
All 3 definitions, chronological · 1838–1953
- ORIGINAL
if the section admits of two interpretations, each of which is within the constitutional authority of congress, that ought to be adopted, which best conforms to the terms and the objects manifested in the enactment, and the mischiefs which it was intended to remedy. And again, if the section admits of two interpretations... it will become our duty to adopt the former construction; because a presumption never ought to be indulged, that congress meant to exercise or usurp any unconstitutional authority, unless that conclusion is forced upon the Court by language altogether unambiguous.
The principle is old and deeply imbedded in our jurisprudence that this Court will construe a statute in a manner that requires decision of serious constitutional questions only if the statutory language leaves no reasonable alternative.