Legal Writing

Quick Cut ? Your Tax Dollars in Print

Consider the following line from the California Health and Safety Code:

Under existing law, a health facility is prohibited from
retaliating or discriminating against an employee of a health
facility that has presented or initiated a complaint or initiated,
participated, or cooperated in an investigation or proceeding of a
government entity relating to the care, services, or conditions of
the facility.

A health facility that’s complained about conditions? That’s the subject (or not, depending on whether the first instance of ‘a health facility’ refers to the same facility as the second instance does).

Had an editor touched that line, it might have turned out like so:

Under existing law, a health care facility is prohibited from
retaliating or discriminating against an employee who presents or
initiates a complaint or who initiates, participates, or cooperates
in an investigation or proceeding by a government entity concerning
the care, services, or conditions of the facility.

We expect high school students to know good grammar from bad; shouldn’t we demand that of legislators?

I’m sure this can’t possibly be true, but just imagine that the legislators (lawyers) used bad grammar intentionally and for the sake of the union (so other lawyers can go to court and argue about what poorly written legislation really means).

Full post as published by Set in Style on October 29, 2009 (boomark / email).