Courts, therefore, must resolve the uncertainty by determining the correct legal
meaning of the ambiguous provision. This text explains the ideal way to
interpret law by a model, the model for interpreting law. Interpreting law, as
courts do, is a function with important consequences because it determines
conclusively which meaning is legally correct (or which meanings are legally
correct) and, in consequence, how the statute (or common law rule) that
contains the ambiguous provision will alight on and affect the citizen.
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In practice, however, we speak of lawyers interpreting law when they advise a
client. This is a form of shorthand because lawyers do not interpret law in the
final sense of determining authoritatively the correct meaning of an ambiguous
provision. Instead
a lawyer advising a client tries to predict how the relevant
court will interpret the law if and when the question comes up for decision.
Interpreting Common Law
Much of what has been said above about interpreting statute law applies to
common law, but in a qualified way. This qualification arises because of
differences between common law and statute law. The words of a statute are
fixed by the legislature. There is never doubt as to what they are, only what
they mean. Unlike statute law common law does not possess a definite and
defined text. Instead there are variations in wording since common law rule are
often stated in different ways in different judgments (or even in the same
judgment). Consequently ambiguity does not arise in common law in the
frequent and acute way that it does with statute law. Often it is resolved by an
explanation of a rule or alternative formulations of the rule in later cases.
However, in those cases where ambiguity does arise, the court has to interpret
it. For this, it uses the model for interpreting law, as is also the case when a
court interprets statute law.
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See Easterbrook (1984). In this context, reference to the “correct legal
meaning” of an ambiguous provision denotes the meaning that a court
authoritatively declares in a judgment to be correct. It is not meant to suggest that
the meaning is “correct” according to some unassailable standard for judging
correctness.
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