Posted by Orin Kerr:
The Problem With Purpose in Statutory Interpretation:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_01_25-2009_01_31.shtml#1233174698
In the comment thread on yesterday's thread on Ledbetter v. Goodyear
Tire & Rubber, [1]commenter Dilan Esper explains why he thinks the
Ledbetter case is very easy despite the text of the statute:
Fundamentally, I don't think Lebetter is a hard case at all, and
that's why I think the Roberts Court defenders are full of it.
The Civil Rights Act is a remedial statute with a remedial
purpose. Obviously, the purpose of any limitations period in it
cannot be to ensure that an employer who intentionally covers up
wage discrimination will be able to get away with it.
Anyone who reads the statute differently is OBVIOUSLY motivated
by a hatred for employment discrimination laws, either because they
don't believe in civil rights or because they simply don't like
government imposing this sort of regulation of business. You don't
read statutory language so contrary to its purposes otherwise.
Dilan Esper's comment is a good example of why it doesn't work to
take such an abstract view of a statute's "purpose" as a guide to
interpret statutes. The problem, it seems to me, is that every statute
has multiple purposes: Different parts of different statutes are
products of different influences, and they all get pressed through the
legislative process as products of compromise.
To pick an obvious problem, the part of the statute at issue in
Ledbetter was the part of the statute designed to stop people from
bringing claims too late. The very purpose of that section was to cut
off valid claims when someone waited more than 180 days to bring them.
So if you're going to play the "purpose" game, you get to chose your
purpose: Either you can say the purpose of the statute as a whole was
remedial, and anyone who reads it contrary to its purpose is
"OBVIOUSLY motivated by a hatred for employment discrimination laws,"
or else you can say that the purpose of the section cutting off claims
was to cut of claims after 180 days, and any one who reads to let
claims survive for years and even decades is "OBVIOUSLY motivated by a
hatred" of limits on employment discrimination law. That doesn't seem
like a very principled approach to statutory interpretation.
References
1. http://volokh.com/posts/1233102017.shtml#524319
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