statutory construction
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 6 U.S. 358 - United States v. Fisher · 1805Most cited · 596 citing opinions
consequences as guide
Where rights are infringed, where fundamental principles are overthrown, where the general system of the laws is departed from, the legislative intention must be expressed with irresistible clearness to induce a court of justice to suppose a design to effect such objects.
How the Supreme Court has restated “statutory construction”
Each Supreme Court definition of “statutory construction,” 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 “statutory construction”
Court decisions citing the 7 opinions that defined “statutory construction” — 1,474 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 7 definitions, chronological · 1804–1926
- ORIGINAL
That a law is the best expositor of itself, that every part of an act is to be taken into view for the purpose of discovering the mind of the legislature, and that the details of one part may contain regulations restricting the extent of general expressions used in another part of the same act, are among those plain rules laid down by common sense for the exposition of statutes which have been uniformly acknowledged.
act as its own expositor
It is to be observed that acts in pari materia are to be construed together as forming one act. If in a subsequent clause of the same act provisions are introduced, which show the sense in which the legislature employed doubtful phrases previously used, that sense is to be adopted in construing those phrases. Consequently, if a subsequent act on the same subject affords complete demonstration of the legislative sense of its own language, the rule which has been stated, requiring that the subsequent should be incorporated into the foregoing act, is a direction to courts in expounding the provisions of the law.
in pari materia subsequent acts
In the construction of the statutory or local laws of a state, it is frequently necessary to recur to the history and situation of the country, in order to ascertain the reason, as well as the meaning, of many of the provisions in them, to enable a court to apply, with propriety, the different rules for construing statutes.
history and situation of country
Where a law is expressed in plain and unambiguous terms, whether those terms are general or limited, the legislature should be intended to mean what they have plainly expressed, and consequently no room is left for construction. ... It is a cardinal rule of statutory construction that significance and effect shall, if possible, be accorded to every word.
plain meaning
It is enough that the reasonable and usual interpretation of such statutes is to confine their effect, so far as may be, to property rights established after they were passed.
non-retroactivity
[I]t is very clear that amendment may not be substituted for construction, and that a court may not exercise legislative functions to save the law from conflict with constitutional limitation.