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Policy Preferences and Legal Interpretation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 October 2022

Ward Farnsworth ,
Dustin Guzior  and
Anup Malani
Ward Farnsworth
Affiliation:
University of Texas
Dustin Guzior
Affiliation:
Sullivan & Cromwell LLP
Anup Malani
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
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Abstract

This article presents an empirical study of statutory interpretation. Respondents were asked to read statutes and answer questions about how they should be applied to simple cases. The results suggest, first, that it is difficult to separate judgments about the linguistic meaning of a statute from policy preferences about it. Different ways of framing the interpretive question have consequences, however; asking how an ordinary reader would interpret a text helps produce answers that are distinct from a respondent’s own preferences about it. The article considers why this might be so and discusses implications for the interpretation of statutes by courts.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Law and Courts , Volume 1 , Issue 1 , Spring 2013 , pp. 115 - 138
Copyright
© 2013 by the Law and Courts Organized Section of the American Political Science Association. All rights reserved.

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Footnotes

We thank Jack Beermann, Frank Easterbrook, Einer Elhauge, William Eskridge, David Klein, Gary Lawson, Richard Posner, Stephen Williams, and three anonymous reviewers, as well as workshop participants at the University of Chicago, Boston University, and the University of California, Irvine, for helpful comments. We thank Adam Badawi, Anthony Casey, Mary Anne Franks, Adam Muchmore, Anthony Niblett, and Arden Rowell for helping to administer surveys at the University of Chicago Law School. We thank Phoebe Holtzman for her research assistance. Malani thanks the Samuel J. Kersten Faculty Fund and the Microsoft Fund for financial support.

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