This morning I saw the following tweet by @section_sign:
https://twitter.com/section_sign/status/609300513239085058
No, I haven’t suddenly acquired an active interest in the politics of bicycling. Instead, I spotted ambiguity.
Here’s a sentence from a benefit plan that exhibits the same ambiguity:
If every member of the Committee does not meet the definition of “outside director” as defined in Code (S)162(m), …
That conveys two possible meanings:
If every member of the Committee fails to meet the definition of “outside director” as defined in Code (S)162(m), …
If one or more members of the Committee fail to meet the definition of “outside director” as defined in Code (S)162(m), …
This is a variant of the hellacious form of ambiguity that I call “ambiguity of the part versus the whole.” I assume that every … not ambiguity doesn’t occur often, and I have no idea whether it has ever given rise to a dispute, so I’m not sure how much attention it merits. But what the heck, I only just spotted it, so it might have hidden nuances.
An initial question, dear reader, is whether this is old news. Has anyone written about this kind of ambiguity?
