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The case of the $13 million comma and why grammarians are rejoicing

 

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-21/th...ma/8372956


Portland-based company Oakhurst Dairy will potentially owe $US10 million ($13 million) to 75 milk-truck drivers in the US state of Maine because of a missing comma in a legal clause.


Last week, Judge David J Barron upheld an appeal in a class-action lawsuit, opening his opinion with: "For want of a comma, we have this case."


Three dairy-truck drivers sued Oakhurst Dairy in 2014 for four years of unpaid overtime wages.


The case hinged on the missing comma after "packing for shipment" in the following clause of Maine state law, which lists exemptions from overtime:


The canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for shipment or distribution of: Agricultural produce, Meat and fish products; and Perishable foods


The missing comma, in this case, would have separated "packing for shipment" and "distribution" into distinct activities, both exempt from overtime.


Without the comma, the drivers argued, the law referred only to the act of packing, for the purpose of either shipping or distributing.


There are other grammatical issues with this clause (neatly unpacked in more detail by Mary Norris in The New Yorker), but David Webbert, a lawyer for the drivers, told The New York Times: "That comma would have sunk our ship".