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Missing Oxford Comma Worth $10M

posted by Fnord666 on Saturday March 18 2017, @12:53PM   
from the I'll-take-'Grammar-Nazi'-for-$10,000,000-Alex-... dept.

hemocyanin writes:

A company that refused to pay its delivery drivers overtime for years has lost its bid to be a cheapskate, to the tune of $10,000,000. The 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals (decision-pdf) interpreted an exception to OT laws with special care to a meaningful but missing comma. Specifically, the phrase existing in the statute is:
"..., packing for shipment or distribution of:"

The company wanted the phrase to be interpreted as:
"..., packing for shipment, or distribution of:"

Without the comma, the activity excluded from coverage is "packing". With the comma present, it would have excluded packing or distribution.

The law as it exists in all its commaless glory:

The canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for shipment or distribution of:

(1) Agricultural produce;

(2) Meat and fish products; and

(3) Perishable foods.

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Original Submission

• Re:I told you... Re:I told you... (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 18 2017, @05:28PM (3 children)

  by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 18 2017, @05:28PM (#480875)

  For engineering communication, a bullet list is my personal choice. Greatly reduces the chance of ambiguity and is also easier to read/parse. Legal clauses with long sentences and many commas are, imo, sometimes designed to obfuscate or hide important details, require lawyers with strict grammatical training to interpret, and not part of good engineering practice.

  Isn't it easier to read this? Legal clauses with long sentences and commas are:
    * sometimes designed to obfuscate or hide important details
    * require lawyers with strict grammatical training to interpret
    * not part of good engineering practice

  Parent

• Re:I told you... Re:I told you... (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday March 18 2017, @05:38PM (2 children)

  by khallow (3766) on Saturday March 18 2017, @05:38PM (#480879) Journal

  The problem here is that this list immediately precedes a bullet list. And you've turned a sentence into a bunch of lines of stuff. So no, I don't agree that it is easier to read. Let's try it out:

  The

  1. canning;
  2. processing;
  3. preserving;
  4. freezing;
  5. drying;
  6. marketing;
  7. storing;
  8. packing for shipment; or
  9. distribution

  of:

  1. Agricultural produce;
  2. Meat and fish products; and
  3. Perishable foods.

  Parent

  • Re:I told you... Re:I told you... (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 18 2017, @06:03PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 18 2017, @06:03PM (#480886)

    Your list-fu needs work. Try this --

    For any or all of the following operations: [establish the "or" before starting the list]
    1. Canning
    ...
    9. Distribution

    Pertaining to these products:
    ...

    Simple lists don't have semicolons inside them (at least not when I write the list!)

    I wonder if the paragraph & comma/semi format started back when paper and printing was expensive? Now that forms are mostly distributed electronically, expanding a long sentence into a vertical list for readability doesn't waste paper.

    Parent

    • Re:I told you... (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday March 19 2017, @05:29AM

      by khallow (3766) on Sunday March 19 2017, @05:29AM (#481059) Journal

      expanding a long sentence into a vertical list for readability doesn't waste paper.

      Nor does it make it more readable.

      Parent