QPL Articles

Lack of a single comma subject of $10 million lawsuit

By Jonathan Ablett | March 21, 2017

In a lesson teaching the importance of clarity for drafters of legislation and contracts alike, the United States First Circuit Court of Appeals recently heard and ruled in favour of unionized workers in a class-action case whereby an ongoing $10 million action hinges on a single comma.

Unionized workers in this case were alleging that they had been stiffed overtime payments over a four year period. In Maine, the setting of the case, workers are entitled to 1.5 times their ordinary pay for overtime work. As in most fine print, however, “some exceptions may apply”.

In this case, the exceptions were cataloged as follows:

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.

Grammar aficionados will notice the potential placement of an oxford comma in the first paragraph. Oxford commas are optionally used in order to produce clarity in a list of items. Consider the clarity of the following two examples:

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

versus

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

The lack of comma could mean either “packing for shipment, or packing for distribution”, or any distribution unrelated to packing for shipment.

In this case, the Court of Appeals reversed a lower court decision which granted summary judgment against the employees, ruling that the exemption’s scope is not clear, and that under Maine law, ambiguities in the state’s wage and hour laws must be construed liberally in order to accomplish their remedial purpose.

See more: nytimes.com