Although the mischief rule may be an appropriate tool for resolving statutory ambiguities, this Note argues that it should not be deployed if the meaning of a law is reasonably clear when read in its semantic and structural contexts.Ĭontinue reading Getting into Mischief: Reflections on Statutory Interpretation and the Mischief Rule. It proceeds to consider the importance of context in statutory interpretation. This Note identifies three difficulties with the mischief rule: the difficulty of separating mischief from pur-pose, the difficulty of identifying mischief in a principled and reliable way, and the difficulty of applying the mischief rule in a helpful way even if one can reliably identify it. He maintains that the mischief should be taken as part of the initial context for interpreting a statute and not just as a tool for resolving ambiguities. Professor Bray argues that textualists should embrace the “mischief rule,” which instructs an interpreter to consider the problem to which a statute was addressed and the way in which the statute is a remedy for that problem. Both terms are self-explanatory and thought to evolve from the social behavior of mice. Bray’s article, The Mischief Rule, 109 G EO. What is a group of mice called The most popular collective noun is mischief and nest.
This Note responds to Professor Samuel L.
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