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Occasionally, the translations won’t match in a contract or law and bilingual legal fun ensues: https://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/25/business/worldbusiness/25com

Occasionally, the translations won’t match in a contract or law and bilingual legal fun ensues: https://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/25/business/worldbusiness/25comma.html https://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/25/business/worldbusiness/25... Whenever I’m looking for a legal loophole, I’ll take a look at the French translation of the law.

pseingatl 5y ago
You can play these games within the same language: See, Regina v. Ojibway.
yboris 5y ago
I'm baffled that dense contracts with so much money on the line do not have better clarification of the terms. It would take one or two extra sentences to make intentions clear for both parties (e.g. "For example, if neither party notifies the other by the end of the 4th year that they do not intend to cancel the renewal, the contract will automatically renew for the subsequent 5 years"). I'm not a lawyer, but when I was helping write agreements for my dad with tenants he had - it seemed like a no-brainer to include "this means, if X does not happen by 11:59pm of Y date, Z will apply". ps - I'm angry at any contract agreement where the date can be interpreted as "end of day, 11:59pm" or "the day, which starts at 0:01am"
- xxpor 5y ago
  How many bugs in software result from forgetting to handle an edge case? Not surprising the same thing can happen in contracts; they're both written by humans. And you can't unit test a contract! (ignoring smart contracts for now)
  - yboris 5y ago
    I took a philosophy course in my university focusing on law, covering contracts. The professor gave an example "a band wants to play at a venue, they make a contract; what happens if the venue burns down, who owes who money?" There are definitely edge cases, but it doesn't feel too hard to specify a "catch all", and if the other party doesn't like it, they should clarify those terms too. Feels easy enough. Reminds me of "burden of proof tennis" - if the catch-all isn't satisfactory to you, carve out an exception the other party accepts.
mrspuratic 5y ago
In Ireland (ROI), Irish being the first official language of the state, constitutionally the Irish language version of a law takes precedence (Article 25, 4.6º) over an English language version (this applies to the constitution itself also). Many laws are written in English in the first place though (the president can sign either form), sadly it's sometimes a decade or more before an official translation is made. A secondary problem is the insistence of a defendant to have his trial heard in the Irish language, or have Irish forms of the various laws/summons/transgressions. We usually call those people "cute hoors".

pseingatl 5y ago

You can play these games within the same language: See, Regina v. Ojibway.

yboris 5y ago

I'm baffled that dense contracts with so much money on the line do not have better clarification of the terms. It would take one or two extra sentences to make intentions clear for both parties (e.g. "For example, if neither party notifies the other by the end of the 4th year that they do not intend to cancel the renewal, the contract will automatically renew for the subsequent 5 years"). I'm not a lawyer, but when I was helping write agreements for my dad with tenants he had - it seemed like a no-brainer to include "this means, if X does not happen by 11:59pm of Y date, Z will apply". ps - I'm angry at any contract agreement where the date can be interpreted as "end of day, 11:59pm" or "the day, which starts at 0:01am"

xxpor 5y ago
How many bugs in software result from forgetting to handle an edge case? Not surprising the same thing can happen in contracts; they're both written by humans. And you can't unit test a contract! (ignoring smart contracts for now)
- yboris 5y ago
  I took a philosophy course in my university focusing on law, covering contracts. The professor gave an example "a band wants to play at a venue, they make a contract; what happens if the venue burns down, who owes who money?" There are definitely edge cases, but it doesn't feel too hard to specify a "catch all", and if the other party doesn't like it, they should clarify those terms too. Feels easy enough. Reminds me of "burden of proof tennis" - if the catch-all isn't satisfactory to you, carve out an exception the other party accepts.

mrspuratic 5y ago

In Ireland (ROI), Irish being the first official language of the state, constitutionally the Irish language version of a law takes precedence (Article 25, 4.6º) over an English language version (this applies to the constitution itself also). Many laws are written in English in the first place though (the president can sign either form), sadly it's sometimes a decade or more before an official translation is made. A secondary problem is the insistence of a defendant to have his trial heard in the Irish language, or have Irish forms of the various laws/summons/transgressions. We usually call those people "cute hoors".