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20 Ins. Counsel J. 102 (1953)
Commas-in-Law

handle is hein.journals/defcon20 and id is 106 raw text is: INSURANCE COUNSEL JOURNAL Commas-In-Law STEWART BROWN Associate Counsel United States Fidelity Baltimore, OME months ago a committee on which I was serving was charged with draft- ing a general liability insurance policy. Such work at times will have a peculiar fascination of its own, but at others it will seem unprofitable. The particular session had definitely declined to the non-fasci- nating stage, and ground to a halt in a debate as to the legal potency of the com- ma which is underlined in the following statement of coverage: structural alterations, new construction and demolition operations, by the in- sured or his contractors. - The issue was whether said comma made it certain that the structural alterations, as well as the demolition operations, had to be performed by the insured or his contractors. In an effort to regain mo- mentum, the Committee relegated me to solitary' as a subcommittee of one to study and, if possible, resolve the point. A fellow member of the Committee and of this Association thought that my report on this momentous question would prove of interest to the readers of this Journal. On the theory that there is no accounting for taste, the result of my study follows: Legal effect of the insertion of a comma between a terminal qualifying word or phrase and the last of a-pre- ceding series of possible an- tecedent words or phrases After a careful perusal of many learned tracts on grammatical construction and punctuation,1 as well as British and Ameri- 'Of the authorities on grammar and punctuation examined, only one makes reference to the use of a comma for the purpose under discussion in this report. See Fowler, A Dictionary of Modern Eng- lish Usage, discussion and examples under and 3, p. 24. The examined works, which apparently do not discuss our problem, are: King's English, (3rd Ed.), Fowler; Mind the Stop, Carey; Ameri- can Punctuation, Summey; Punctuation, Brittain; Get it Right, Opdycke; Standard Handbook for Secretaries, Hutchinson; College Handbook of Com- position, Wolley & Scott; Crowell's Dictionary of English Grammar, Wesseen; Advanced English Grammar, Kettridge & Farley; English Grammar Simplified, Fernald. However, no representations are made that the search for grammatical authority has been exhaustive. and Tax Counsel & Guaranty Company Maryland can cases on the subject,' we are reluctantly driven to th conclusion that there can be no justification for the statement unblush- ingly propounded by a distinguished punc- tuist that: The mind of one who happens to have an eye for a comma is not neces- sarily incapable of comprehending larger issues or embracing wider interests.' In fact, the reverse would appear the better reasoning. Proficiency in compre- hension in any other field is definitely a handicap in the demesnes of grammar. For that reason, this report, together with any criticism of it, must be definitely set down as a declaration against interest. Before considering the authorities deal- ing directly with the cause and effect of inserted or omitted commas it seems ad- visable to review the cases which purport to assess the estate of punctuation in gen- eral, insofar as the law is concerned. Fair warning is hereby given that this enter- prise will be very painful to a true punc- tuator. The law; so it says in effect, does not give a tinker's damn for punctuation.' In an iterated effort to demonstrate this 'Unfortunately for the legal punctuist, the cases on punctuation are not collected in the digests under a single heading. The West Publishing Company's key numbers dealing with punctuation are: Constitutional Law §14, Contracts §158, Deeds §90, Insurance §146(2), Appeal and Error §§662(1, 938(3), Statutes §§147, 181(1), 200, Taxation §421(1), Wills §465, Charities §31. Many of the American cases are collected in 3 A.L.R. 1062 and supplemental annotations. See also C.J.S., Contracts §306; American Jurisprudence, Contracts §256; Williston on Contracts §619. The British digesters are apparently oblivious to punctuation as a topic or even a sub-topic of discussion. 'G. V. Carey, Mind the Stop (Preface), Cam- bridge University Press (1939). 'The disdair, of the law for punctuation is doubtless partly attributable to its absence on the rolls of Parliament and in early deeds, punctua- tion being supplied for the former by the printer after the enactment of the Act. See Craines, Statute Law, (2nd Ed.) pps. 24, 198, 199. Statutes present a special case in that the legislators, in early times at least, would have only heard the act read before passage. See Crawford, Statutory Construction, §199, note 147. It required a special Act of Parliament (13 & 14 Vict. C. 21, S. 2(s)) to permit the intro- duction of a full stop into a British statute. Full punctuation was not introduced into statutes in Page 102 April, 1953

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