Talk:Rules of construction

In the middle of the nineteenth century, "construction" and "interpretation" were not synonymous or interchangeable terms. Rather, they were coordinate or complementary terms, working together to determine what rule is derivable from a legal authority for a particular application. The best theoretical discussion in English was published by Franz (~Fritz) Liebert, a German immigrant to the U.S. In the traditional or classical senses of the term, "construction" was concerned with situations not directly addressed by a text, and thus requiring inferential reasoning. Examples are the U. S. Supreme Court rulings on birth control and abortion; neither concept is mentioned in the U. S. Constitution, and it is extremely difficult to argue that either of these concepts were addressed by enacted law that was incorporated into the Constitution, either at the time of the original ratification or at the time of the enactment of the Fourteenth Amendment. Political reaction in the 1970s to perceived liberal rulings by the U. S. Supreme Court and other federal court gave rise to the notion of "strict constructionism" by President Nixon and others. More than a century after Liebert's works found wide currency in academic legal circles, the terms became interchangeable, and thus the principal article correctly states the present-day senses of the terms as interchangeable.

For those who must read legal opinions or enacted rules concerning interpretation and construction, it should be noted that there is, in effect, a single jurisprudence of interpretation and construction of legal instruments, be these "statutes" or be these private legal instruments, such as contracts and other agreements, wills, trust instruments, grants of authority such as "powers" documents, or even deeds. The term "statute" includes not only legislative enactments, but also constitutions and, incredibly, treaties, which brings the enterprise full circle back into interpretation or construction of contracts and agreements.

Many modern uniform codes, such as the Uniform Probate Code in the United States, even announce policies for interpretation and construction of the particular uniform code. Thus, for example, California's Probate Code section 2 announces such rules.

William Snow Hume, CPA, JD williamsnowhume@yahoo.com

Wikified and heavy copy edit
I've cleaned this up as best I can. The citation used in the first rule has an obvious problem, but I cannot fix it. If someone else can find the correct legal citation, I think the cleanup tag could come off. Jekoko 17:12, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

found last legal citation
removing cleanup tag Jekoko 03:37, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

== Combined with the U.S. legal system and statutory construction, moved each section to individual articles. 68.17.145.44 19:16, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

clean up after break out
cleaned up the sections 68.17.145.44 broke out and added context and links. I don't exactly see why they needed to be broken out but it wasn't such a big deal to cleanup the situation. However, we now have a red-link on this page, which I hope someone can address. Jekoko 18:06, 22 July 2005 (UTC)