 Lack of Oxford Comma Could Cost Maine Company Millions in Overtime Dispute
The title of this HN post, like nearly every headline I've seen for this lawsuit, is misleading. The headlines makes it seem as if the company forgot an Oxford comma and is now losing millions as a result of having made a typographical error.<p>This is not the case. There is a statute that does not have a comma where one might be, and the litigants fought over whether the lack of a comma toward the end of a list ought to be read in light of the Oxford comma convention or not.<p>And it's actually more complicated, as the last item in the list is (potentially) compound, which makes it difficult to tell whether the "and" is to be attached to the final element alone, or to be a binding of the final element and previous elements.<p>Not that this its uncommon for articles to have misleading headlines, but I've been surprised at the extent to which nearly every article (save this one [1], by the ever-precise law professors at the Volokh Conspiracy) have misrepresented the case (or misunderstood it?) to make it seem like a company's typo led to a million dollar loss.<p>1: <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/03/15/a-b-or-c-vs-a-b-or-c-the-serial-comma-and-the-law/" rel="nofollow">https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...</a>