Opinion ID: 307716
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the interest of uniformity

Text: 289 At issue here is no garden variety uniformity. Whatever the benefit of having the Circuits in substantial alignment on important questions of law, that is clearly not the benefit which the Court is seeking here. The other Circuits that have adopted the ALI test have taken a variety of substantially different approaches to the interpretation of its language. 33 And today this Court adopts a variation on the ALI theme which differs, in design at least, from the approach of every other court. But the Court makes clear that uniformity in substance is not our goal, but only uniformity in vocabulary. If all of us speak the same language, the Court reasons, judicial communication will be enhanced. 290 Even accepting the argument at face value, it contributes very little to the resolution of the issue. For the argument does not even purport to demonstrate that the ALI test is inherently preferable to Durham-McDonald or any other test. I do not mean to disparage the value of judicial communication, but it is surely a concern of markedly less importance than the substantive merits of the test. 291 In any case, it is far from clear that our adoption of the new test will, in fact, enhance communication. The Court assumes that the lessons we have learned from Durham-McDonald have been lost in translation to the other Circuits, and that their lessons have been similarly lost to us. The problem apparently arises because of blockage due to jargon. Majority opinion at 984. It is not clear to me how one would prove or disprove that assertion. But as a matter of logic-and surely as a reason for adopting the ALI test-the assertion is entirely unpersuasive. In fact, if I were to devise a paradigm scheme for blocking communication, I would arrange for courts to hide major differences behind uniform language, so that the differences would be overlooked by all but the most astute observers. That is precisely the result we have achieved by adopting the all-things-to-all-people language of the ALI test. By contrast, the singular phrasing of our prior rule encouraged its analysis by courts and commentators, and forced us to compare our approach with the approach of other courts. I do not see how we can reasonably expect our adoption of the ALI test to enhance our communication with other courts. 292