Abstract

Accepting "dynamism" in statutory interpretation as both inevitable and desirable, this Comment questions Bill Eskridge's favored "critical pragmatism" as the appropriate stance from which a judge should undertake dynamic interpretation. Instead interpretation should be more closely tied to information about legislative "intention." The Comment suggests that the most appropriate conceptualization of that "intention" is what a hypothetical single legislator would have been seeking to accomplish by the enacted language. Such an "intention" can be made meaningful only if the "intending" legislator is assumed to have acted in a given linguistic and historical context. The Comment tentatively posits that the context be taken to be that of the legislature sitting at the time of interpretation rather than of the enacting legislature. These moves would leave plenty of room for-indeed help justify-dynamism in interpretation. But they would provide both definition and a degree of guidance for interpreting courts that "critical pragmatism" does not.

Recommended Citation

Robert Bennett, "Justifying Dynamism" Issues in Legal Scholarship, Dynamic Statutory Interpretation (2002): Article 4.
http://www.bepress.com/ils/iss3/art4