I'm reading lots of documents written by attorneys filled with "and/or" and it is such an awkward, ugly phrase. Blech. For almost every use, my definition of "or" is the correct one.

Can we just get everyone to agree with the logical, consistent definition of "or" that is a superset of "and"?

In any case, “and” between (1) and (2) bothers me, because it seems more definitive than “or”, and thus seems to exclude “or” – at least to my eye and/or (smile) ear.

Re redrafting (1): I’d prefer “the crime is punishable by a custodial penalty, instead of or in addition to any other penalty”.

[Note - I deliberately put the punctuation outside the close quote when I quote contract clauses (as in the above comment), in order to be explicit as to the language I'm referring to. I don't see any reason to follow a typographer's convention at the possible expense of clarity.]

But I’m still undecided whether it’s worth making it explicit that a crime that satisfies both criteria falls within the scope of the provision. It wouldn’t be reasonable to argue otherwise, even it it weren’t make explicit.

Incidentally, how would you redraft clause (1)?

Ken

In your example, why not just say:

the Employee is charged with any crime that satisfies either or both of the following criteria: (1) the crime is punishable by a custodial penalty, instead of or in addition to any fine or other non-custodial penalty; or (2) the crime is related to the Employee’s employment.

If there were multiple criteria, the intro could be “satisfies one or more of the following criteria.”

Note that I changed one of your example’s commas to a semicolon. That’s because the “instead of” clause is sufficiently confusing (multiple or’s and multiple negations) that I wanted to ensure that its scope couldn’t somehow overflow the bounds of clause (1) and be carelessly read to affect clause (2).

Really, clause (1) should be redrafted too, in my opinion, but that’s beyond the scope of this article topic.

Nice blog, btw.

I’m with you on this one since the list only has two items, but I would probably me more likely to stick with just “or.” Think of it this way: if you have a list of six or seven possible grounds for terminating an employee “with cause,” would you add a clause at the end saying “or any combination of the reasons”?

I think it would be absurd for a person terminated with cause to argue that the word “or” meant that he could only be terminated for cause if his conduct fell under one and ONLY ONE of the listed criteria. I don’t see that having a list of only two items is much different.