Dictionary Diving in the Courts: A Shaky Grab for Ordinary Meaning

22 Journal of Appellate Practice and Process 209 (2022)

54 Pages Posted: 31 Jan 2022 Last revised: 2 Sep 2022

Date Written: January 1, 2022

Abstract

This article examines courts’ use and misuse of general (lay) dictionaries. It is unique in several respects: (1) I believe it is the first to collect data on the use of dictionaries from a court’s beginning—in this instance the Michigan Supreme Court from 1845 until 2020. The numbers are startling. And they correspond with the rise in textualist methods of interpretation. (2) It catalogues 15 ways in which this court has misused dictionaries. Those same kinds of misuses would surely appear in cases from other jurisdictions. (3) It collects comments from lexicographers themselves on courts’ use of dictionaries. (4) It explains in some detail why resorting to dictionaries is linguistically misguided. (5) It collects and distills, at the end, the (scathing) scholarly commentary.

Keywords: textualism, dictionaries, lay dictionaries, dictionary-making, lexicography, ordinary meaning, plain meaning, ambiguity, context, pragmatic context

JEL Classification: K10, K40

Suggested Citation

Kimble, Joseph, Dictionary Diving in the Courts: A Shaky Grab for Ordinary Meaning (January 1, 2022). 22 Journal of Appellate Practice and Process 209 (2022), Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4017914 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4017914

Joseph Kimble (Contact Author)

Cooley Law School ( email )

300 S. Capitol Avenue
P.O. Box 13038
Lansing, MI 48901
United States

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