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Re: Lack of Oxford Comma Could Cost Maine Company Millions i... by harryh on Friday March 17, 2017 @01:46PM (#13896159)
Because law is written to allow for interpretation when unforeseen circumstances are encountered.
Re: Lack of Oxford Comma Could Cost Maine Company Millions i... by Retr0spectrum on Friday March 17, 2017 @01:52PM (#13896215)
Usually with the aim to maintain consistency with the intent of the law. If the intent is ambiguous, you can't easily do that (as this case demonstrates). A formally defined Controlled Natural Language[0] would be ideal for situations like this. Arguably "Legalese" already is it's own form of CNL, albeit not very well controlled.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_natural_language

Re: Lack of Oxford Comma Could Cost Maine Company Millions i... by walshemj on Friday March 17, 2017 @03:01PM (#13896918)
I think you meant to allow for big payday for lawyers to argue about for a decade or so