Grammatical Error Costs Payless Shoes $2.45 million
A recent case from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit demonstrates the importance of using proper grammar in contracts and insurance policies. Payless Shoesource, Inc., parent company of Payless Shoes, sought reimbursement from its insurer, Travelers, from a 2003 class action settlement involving violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act. In an opinion written by Judge Neil M. Gorsuch, former law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, the federal appeals court affirmed the decision by the district court.
The dispute involved the meaning of a misplaced modifier in the insurance policy. Justice Gorsuch wrote that “while misplaced modifiers are syntactical sins righteously condemned by English teachers everywhere, our job is not to critique the parties’ grammar, but only, if possible, to adduce and enforce their contract’s meaning. Here, a punctuation peccadillo notwithstanding, the meaning of the parties’ contract is unambiguous.”
The citation for the opinion is Payless Shoesource, Inc. v. Travelers Companies, Inc., — F.3d —-, No. 08-3246, 2009 WL 3739381 (10th Cir. Nov. 10, 2009).
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I confess to not having reviewed the case file here; however, I do find the use of proper grammar to be important. One of my favorites is when I read a no parking sign that states, “Vehicle will be towed at owner’s expense.”
I do not make a habit of parking where I ought not to park, but I have always said that I would use as a defense that the sign was ambiguous as to what owner would pay and that given the ambiguity, it should be assumed that the property owner will pay the expense of towing and not the vehicle owner.
I have actually mentioned this at a couple of ddifferent establishments, and I have noticed that a couple of places have changed their signs to read “vehicle will be towed at vehicle owner’s expense.”