Opinion ID: 836195
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: dissent and ambiguity

Text: The Chief Justice's definition of ambiguity stands in contrast to what has been the predominant approach in our state. In Mayor of Lansing v. Pub. Service Comm., 470 Mich. 154, 166, 680 N.W.2d 840 (2004), this Court stated that a provision of the law is ambiguous only if it `irreconcilably conflict[s]' with another provision or when it is equally susceptible to more than a single meaning. (Citation omitted.) Similarly, in Klapp v. United Ins. Group Agency, Inc., 468 Mich. 459, 467, 663 N.W.2d 447 (2003), this Court found a contract to be ambiguous because two provisions irreconcilably conflict[ed] with each other. [25] Such an understanding of ambiguity restricts the judge to saying what the law is based on the words chosen by the Legislature in all but the most extraordinary circumstances. While the Chief Justice suggests that the relative rarity of a finding that a law or contract is ambiguous under this definition constitutes its vice, ante at 575, by preserving a broader realm within which the ordinary process of interpretation may proceed, and in which deference will be shown to the decisions of the lawmaker, this may be better understood as its principal virtue. Many disputes before this Court involve difficult or complex interpretations of statutes and contracts, yet it remains our responsibility to sort out these difficulties and complexities and finally determine what constitutes the most reasonable, if not always the perfect or the crystalline, meaning of the law. Judges have traditionally approached this responsibility by looking to the language of a statute or contract, considering relevant dictionary definitions of words and phrases, [26] assessing the existence and meanings of terms of art, [27] evaluating the context of words [28] and grammatical, syntactical, and punctuational clues, [29] comparing related and companion provisions of the law, [30] discerning the organization and structure of statutes and contracts, [31] invoking traditional default rules and maxims of interpretation, [32] and applying proper understandings of legal purpose and precedent. [33] This should not be understood as a mechanical process, for judges engaged conscientiously in this exercise will sometimes disagree about the meaning of the law, but it is a process in which the focus is directed outwardly toward the language of the statute or contract, rather than inwardly toward the personal predilections of the judge. [34] As Justice Felix Frankfurter once remarked, the highest exercise of judicial duty is to subordinate one's personal will and one's private views to the law.'