Lack of Oxford Comma Could Cost Maine Company Millions in Overtime Dispute (nytimes.com)

Daniel VIctor, writing for The New York Times: A class-action lawsuit about overtime pay for truck drivers hinged entirely on a debate that has bitterly divided friends, families and foes: The dreaded -- or totally necessary -- Oxford comma, perhaps the most polarizing of punctuation marks. What ensued in the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, and in a 29-page court decision handed down on Monday, was an exercise in high-stakes grammar pedantry that could cost a dairy company in Portland, Me., an estimated $10 million. In 2014, three truck drivers sued Oakhurst Dairy, seeking more than four years' worth of overtime pay that they had been denied (Editor's note: the link could be paywalled; alternate link from a syndicated partner). Maine law requires workers to be paid 1.5 times their normal rate for each hour worked after 40 hours, but it carves out some exemptions. [...] The debate over commas is often a pretty inconsequential one, but it was anything but for the truck drivers. Note the lack of Oxford comma -- also known as the serial comma -- in the following state law, which says overtime rules do not apply to: "The canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for shipment or distribution of: (1) Agricultural produce; (2) Meat and fish products; and (3) Perishable foods. Oakhurst Dairy is arguing that "packing for shipment" and "distribution" are two different items in the list. But that's not how the truck drivers are seeing it. They argue that "packing for shipment or distribution" is one item.

Comments

It is a useful comma and should be retained

[number6x]

Efforts to drop the comma originated with newspapers in a time when space on the printed page mattered. word groupings are always clear with it, and may, or may not, be clear without it.

It should be preserved in formal writing.

As the sentence is written in the article, the drivers won the case because the written sentence says exactly what they interpret it to say. The dairy company is on the wrong side of the language.

A comma after the word 'shipment' and before the word 'or' would have made the company the winner.

Re:clearly the truckers are right

[thebigmacd]

The State of Maine states that the Oxford comma should *never* be used in Maine legislation. This means the second(last) item after a comma in a list should be considered a separate item, based on the legislative drafting manual. I don't see how the court could ignore this.
https://www.maine.gov/legis/ro...

"A. Series. Although authorities on punctuation may differ, when drafting Maine law or
rules, don’t use a comma between the penultimate and the last item of a series.

Do not write:
Trailers, semitrailers, and pole trailers

  Write:
  Trailers, semitrailers and pole trailers

Be careful if an item in the series is modified. For example:
Trailers, semitrailers and pole trailers of 3,000 pounds gross weight or less
are exempt from the licensing provisions.

Does the 3,000-pound limit apply to trailers and semitrailers or only to pole trailers? If the
limit is not intended to apply to trailers and semitrailers, the provision should read:
Pole trailers of 3,000 pounds gross weight or less, trailers and semitrailers
are exempt from the licensing provisions.

If the limit is intended to apply to all three, the provision should read:
If a trailer, semitrailer or pole trailer has a gross weight of 3,000 pounds or
less, it is not required to be licensed."

Re:clearly the truckers are right

[beelsebob]

It's clearly not because they're a single item, or the previous item in the list would have had "or" instead of a comma.

If the intent had been that this was one item, the law would have said "The canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing or packing for shipment or distribution of: (1) Agricultural produce; (2) Meat and fish products; and (3) Perishable foods."

Re:Oakhurst Dairy is correct

[pr0t0]

I don't believe it's that simple. Consider the following example I just found:
"I love my parents, Lady Gaga and Humpty Dumpty."

That sentence could be interpreted either as you love your parents AND Lady Gaga AND Humpty Dumpty. It could also be interpreted as you love your parents, and your parents are named Lady Gaga and Humpty Dumpty. There is a degree of ambiguity there.

Now consider this sentence:
"I love my parents, Lady Gaga, and Humpty Dumpty."

There is no ambiguity there. Clearly the speaker is listing three separate entities.

The judge did not rule on the meaning of the sentence. Instead, he ruled on whether the sentence is ambiguous. I think most people would agree the sentence has at least a degree of ambiguity, and that the presence of an Oxford comma would have removed that ambiguity. I had a better education with regard to grammar than students in most of the schools in my area, and even I am not absolutely sure what is technically correct. I think the judge is saying the truck drivers would not have been able to enter into the contract with full knowledge of its repercussions, but for knowledge of a grammatical technicality.

An old example, but worth it.

[Hussman32]

I've always used the Oxford comma ever since I read this sentence:

"I'd like to thank my parents, God and Ayn Rand."

Much different meaning than

"I'd like to thank my parents, God, and Ayn Rand."

Re:clearly the truckers are right

[mrchaotica]

First of all, I'll agree with you.

However, at the very least, this could have been easily solved by using a bulleted list instead of writing it out in a sentence. Non-standard syntax is not necessary in this particular case.

Second, law-making bodies (and the general public, as they ought to be able to access the law conveniently too) need better software tools for dealing with legislation. For example, they need better version-control -- I'm involved with local government, and getting a diff-like representation of the proposed changes to a law is way more of a pain in the ass than it should be. Another issue is that laws are structured like computer code, with external references, but there needs to be a better way to "inline" the other clauses being referenced so that it's easier to see the whole law without having to jump around and reference multiple sources. Finally, lawmakers need to be introduced to the concepts of "refactoring," "technical debt" and "removing unused code."