The Appellate Practice section of the Michigan State Bar has an EMail group, and a discussion arose which actually had some entertainment value. A little background: in recent years, certain Justices of the Michigan Supreme Court have subscribed to the textualist approach to the judicial interpretation of statutes; that is, they tend to decline any opportunity to construe statutory language in other than its strictest literal meaning, regardless of evidence of contrary legislative intent or of absurd results. This is yet another round in a very old tension between competing approaches to statutory interpretation, but one which led to the following exchange, which has at least the merit of humor:

Judge Learned Hand once observed: "[t]here is no surer way to misread any document than to read it literally." Guiseppi v. Walling, 144 F.2d 608, 624 (2nd Cir 1944), aff'd sub nom, Gemsco v. Walling, 324 U.S. 244 (1945). I wonder what our current Michigan Supreme Court would think of Judge Hand's remark.

It depends, Stu. Do you think they would read it literally?

Well did he "observe" or did he "write" it? Actually I suppose he might have handwritten it (but then again, he may have printed) or of course he could have dictated it then had it transcribed by another person, perhaps his secretary (in which case he would have "said" it). And when Judge Hand wrote (or printed or dictated or otherwise put forth) those words, did he mean "misread" or did he mean "read", because later he says (well, writes, or types or dictates)....

Ahhh ~ the rousing fun we have!