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9 A.B.A. J. 225 (1923)
Punctuation in the Law

handle is hein.journals/abaj9 and id is 239 raw text is: PUNCTUATION IN THE LAW
Use of Points is a Matter of Prime Importance in Drafting of Statutes and Preparation of
Important Legal Documents-Attitude of Courts on the Subject-Some Practical
Suggestions Offered to the Lawyer
By URBAN A. LAVERY
Chief Legislative Draftsman, Ill. Const. Convention, 1920-22

NE of the most famous maxims of the law-
De minimis non curat Lex-is to the effect
that the law does not concern itself with
trifles.  For the average lawyer punctuation is
purely a de minimis matter, a trifle to which he
gives no concern. Such indeed was the view of the
writer of this paper before his experience as Legis-
lative Draftsman for the late Illinois Constitutional
Convention taught him otherwise. In that work
two points were brought home to him; first that
punctuation has considerable importance for the
practicing lawyer and second that it is possible to
offer some practical suggestions as to its usage.
There are two main fields of legal work where ques-
tions of punctuation are of prime importance-in
the drafting of legislation which is frequently the
job of the practicing lawyer and in the preparation
of the important legal documents which are con-
stantly presented to him. Something will be said
in this paper about the subject of punctuation as it
is presented in each of these fields.
Before coming to a discussion of what to do
and what not to do, there are certain preliminary
points which should be mentioned. In the first
place it must be remembered always that what is
good punctuation in other writing is usually over-
punctuation from the lawyer's point of view. A
good illustration of this difference occurred in the
work of the Illinois Constitutional Convention just
referred to. That body gave much more than usual
consideration to matters of draftsmanship and the
subject  of  punctuation   received  careful and
thoughtful attention. After the final draft of the
document had been prepared and a fixed policy of
reducing punctuation to a minimum had been
adopted the draft was sent for criticism as to style
and form to a well known professor of English in a
leading university. That expert on style made
scarcely any corrections as to the wording of the
draft but he inserted a multitude of points (the
technical name for punctuation marks), especially
of commas. Practically every point which he in-
serted, however, was removed before the document
was engrossed. Those in charge of the actual
drafting of the document had many a good laugh
about the barrel of commas for sale, when the
extra points were removed. Yet the English pro-
fessor was entirely right from his point of view.
He was schooled in a tradition which held and
taught the so-called close style of punctuation,
while every good lawyer adheres rigidly to the
open style.'
Another preliminary point is the mental atti-
tude of lawyers toward punctuation, a matter al-
L. Nelster's New International Dictionary in defining punc.
tuation says:  Punctuation is close when the points. eopecially commas.
are used profusely, and wherever clearness and precision are the first
requisite, as in this dictionary, it is open, as in prevalent English literary
usage, when points are omitted wherever possible without ambiguity.
This sentence is over-punctuated from a lawyer's point of view.

ready mentioned. They consider punctuation as a
subject not worthy of much notice. Usually it is left
to the temperamental mercies of the stenographer.
But just here are certain psychological factors
which should not be overlooked. In the first place
the using of punctuation is essentially feminine.
That is, instead of a rugged and bold reliance on
words to convey meaning, which would be the
masculine way of doing things, the habit has grown
up of dressing up a sentence with the lace and
ruffles of punctuation. It is well known that women
authors and letter writers use more punctuation
than men; and most law stenographers are women.
In the second place most stenographers, whether
men or women, are likely to be over-impressed with
the necessity of using such things as points, under-
scoring of words and capital letters; considering
them like spice in food of which, for critical tastes,
the more used the better. The result is that an ex-
cessive use of commas (the so-called comma
fault) is a frequent thing in legal documents.
Coming now to the first of our main topics, it
is easy to prove that in drafting laws the matter of
punctuation cannot be ignored. In a recent dis-
patch from Washington, D. C., the papers carried
a headline--iMissing Comma Causes Trouble-
and then proceeded to tell how:
Misplacement of a comma in the text of the 'war
risk insurance act took away from thousands of offi-
cers and men in the coast guard all the benefits of that
act after Aug. 28, 1919, in the opinion of officials of
that service who appeared today before the house inter-
state commerce committee to ask that the coast guard
be again placed on equality with the army and navy.
That is perhaps hearsay' testimony and will
be excluded by lawyers although the rest of man-
kind like Mr. Dooley are inclined to say, I see by
the papers, and believe a large part of what they
read.  Another instance therefore will be given
which every lawyer must accept as authentic. The
legislature of Illinois at its session of 1872 passed
an act giving judges certain increased powers in
vacation, the act providing among other things-
The several judges . . . shall have power, in
vacation, to hear and determine motions to dissolve
injunctions, stay or quash proceedings, etc.
In 1874 the legislature passed the so-called Revised
Laws of Illinois which purported to codify the exist-
ing statutes and in the revision of the sentence just
quoted a comma was somehow inserted after the
word motions. The complete change in meaning
thereby affected is obvious and the story of what
happened as a result of that blunder is worth tell-
ing. An energetic country lawyer saw in that extra
comma an opportunity to get a big fee by the shoe
string route. He arranged with a client of his by
the name of Hammock to have the latter purchase
two judgments, both of which aggregated less than
2. 111. Laws 1871-2. p. 50-4, Sec. 1.

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