About this Book

This book reviews the primary rules courts apply to discern a statute's meaning. However, each matter of interpretation before a court presents its own challenges, and there is no unified, systematic approach used in all cases. While schools of statutory interpretation may vary on what factors should be considered, all approaches start (if not necessarily end) with the language and structure of the statute itself. In analyzing a statute's text, courts are guided by the basic principle that a statute should be read as a harmonious whole, with its separate parts being interpreted within their broader statutory context.