Two Kinds of Plain Meaning

Abstract:     
Is plain meaning so plain? This is not meant to be a philosophical question, but one deserving serious legal analysis. The plain-meaning rule claims to provide certainty and narrow statutes' domains. The author agrees with, as a relative claim, comparing plain meaning with purposivism. She does not agree that plain-meaning analysis is as easy as its proponents suggest. In this piece, the author teases out two very different ideas of plain meaning -- ordinary/popular meaning and expansive/legalist meaning -- suggesting that doctrinal analysis requires more than plain-meaning simpliciter. Perhaps more importantly, she argues that plain meaning, as legalist meaning, can quite easily expand a statute's scope, relative to a baseline of ordinary meaning or the status quo ex ante.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 10

Keywords: constitutional interpretation, textualism, legal theory, statutory interpretation, plain meaning, labor law

JEL Classification: K30, K31, K39

Accepted Paper Series