Yeah, that’s an interesting question as to why it took two month.
I have no idea about the second question.
The “construe against the drafter” rule is one of many general rules of contract interpretation. So an actual decision will hinge on which of several possibly conflicting general rules should be given the most weight.
In the instant case, both Rogers and Alliant are big actors. This was not a consumer or small biz signing a canned “take it or leave it contract” for e.g. cable TV services. Both parties had, or could have had, a major hand in writing the language. Certainly it’s reasonable that both parties had adequate opportunity for legal review by their own licensed contract pros.
That rebuttable presumption of quality professional review on both sides generally greatly blunts the force of the general “construe against the drafter” rule. Generally.
I remembered reading about the comma case, but didn’t know the details. In the end, the comma didn’t matter, because the courts ruled the document in question was a statutory form, that was nullified by a subsequent Supreme Court decision.
That’s the short version. If you want the long version, you need to sit through a short lecture on the federal-provincial division of powers, a ruling by the Canadian Radio-Telecommunications Commission, a Supreme Court decision, the CRTC decision about a comma, a Federal Court of Appeal decision, and a New Brunswick Court of Appeal decision.
Who’s with me?
Sounds fascinating. A tour de force by an expert is always good stuff regardless of the topic.
Maybe it took some lawyer 2 months to realize “hey! Is it different in French?”
If both languages’ versions have equal value, then logically for a penalty or fine to be applicable, the penalty must apply in the reading of the law in either language. If I can point to the reading in language F and it says something is allowed, then E must be a mistake if it forbids it. After all, someone who speaks only F would think they are permitted to do it.
I would guess that for contracts, the one that does “the least damage” or disruption is the proper interpretation. Rogers pays $1M under scenario E that perhaps they dont under F, while the hydro company simply continues to collect the same amount, so minimal disruption, as long as there was no urgent need for them to acquire the extra $1M.
The first article mentions bicycling under the influence (BUI?) as illegal, which makes sense - you are still a danger, albeit a lesser one, to yourself and others. Even so with a skateboard. Is a horse cart “motorized”? (One horse-power?) How about just sitting on the horse? What if the horse has gotten into the fermented apples?
Most countries had laws penalising being drunk in charge of a horse, or horse-drawn vehicle, recognising that while the horse had a mind of its own, it was in the charge of the driver, who should be the one held responsible.
I grew up in Ohio’s Amish country so this comes up regularly. Riding a horse drunk could not be prosecuted under the drunk-driving laws, because a horse is not a vehicle. A horse-drawn buggy is, though, and drunk-driving a buggy was prosecutable. The drunken equestrian could only be charged with disorderly conduct, criminal mischief, battery, etc, depending on the details.
It would be an offence here under the Licensing Act 1872, ‘drunk in charge of any carriage, horse or cattle on the highway’.
Drunken shepherds are okay?
Sheep are probably included in the category of “cattle”. Nowadays the word is mostly used for Bos, but historically it meant the same as what we now call “livestock”.
That is a good catch.
And to bring us back onto topic: there’s the problem of translating laws from the language as written in to the language as understood now. It’s not just a matter of updating old laws for modern innovations, but the words themselves drift in meaning.
I’ll take “well-regulated” for $200, Alex.
I’m the OP. Please do NOT respond to this attempt at humor, not attempt at hijack. Thank you.
I not sure “saddlesloshed” is a word. Yet I really think it should be.
Sure!
So am I.
One distinction that must be noted is that in Canada, not all laws are in English and French.
What do I mean? Well, let’s start with the easy one: all Canadian federal laws (i.e. those passed by the federal Parliament) are in English and French.
But provincial laws … it depends. Not every province passes laws in English and French. In fact, most don’t: I believe only Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, and New Brunswick do. In the rest, laws are in English only.
Thing is, that with contracts, there is very little statute law in either English or French*. Contract law operates mostly on Common Law, the law of precedent. The only statute I can think of that governs contracts is the Statute of Frauds, 29 Cha. 2, c. 3 (1677). But mostly, it’s hundreds of years of contract precedents.
(*) French is used in contract law statutes in Quebec, which uses a written civil code to govern private law matters, such as contracts. Neither the other provinces, nor the federal government, use a written code to govern contracts, with the exception of the Statute of Frauds.
For the sake of completeness, the three territories do publish laws in both languages. This should come as no surprise, as the territories, while in practice autonomous, ultimately fall under federal jurisdiction.
On the matter of Quebec, there is actually a legal rule about statutory interpretation. Very much in brief, in Quebec, in layman’s terms French is given priority over other languages and English is treated by the law as a second-class language. There is in fact a statute called the Charter of the French Language, enacted in 1977, which defines the rights and duties for using French. According to section 1 of this Charter, “French is the official language of Québec. Only French has that status”. Then, according to section 7, "French is the language of the legislature and the courts in Québec, subject to the following:
(1) legislative bills shall be printed, published, passed and assented to in French and in English, and the statutes shall be printed and published in both languages;
(2) the regulations and other similar acts to which section 133 of the Constitution Act, 1867 applies shall be made, passed or issued, and printed and published in French and in English;
(3) the French and English versions of the texts referred to in paragraphs 1 and 2 are equally authoritative;
(4) either French or English may be used by any person in, or in any pleading in or process issuing from, any court of Québec."
So the above legal rule establishes that in Quebec, both the French and English versions of laws are equally valid. As for interpretation, look at the text of 7.1 (an amendment added in 2022), which says:
" In the case of a discrepancy between the French and English versions of a statute, regulation or other act referred to in paragraph 1 or 2 of section 7 that cannot be properly resolved using the ordinary rules of interpretation, the French text shall prevail."
In other words, the French text takes precedence if it is necessary to resolve a discrepancy between the two versions that cannot be solved by rules of interepretation commonly used to interpret laws.
Subject to what I just wrote about section 7.1 of the Charter of the French Language, I recall reading something to the effect that in Quebec, when there is a discrepancy between the French and English versions of a statute, that version is used which (in the opinion of jurists) best reflects the lawmaker’s intent.
So much from me. Let’s see what further comments @Northern_Piper has on the topic.
In South Africa we have 11 official languages, but English is effectively the working language of law and government. Acts of Parliament are published in English and one other language. It used to always be English and Afrikaans, a holdover from the apartheid era; more recently there has been rotation of the other languages.
The President signs one of the texts of an Act, and that’s the authoritative version if there’s any conflict in the translation. Generally it’s the English text that gets signed - which makes sense since the bills are generally drafted and debated on the English text.
How do things work for the EU?
The joke I recall was that they use English because the French refused to use German and the Germans refused to use French. Not sure what Brexit did to that.