Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump · ¶115

Introducing her view that “commonsense principles of communication” can sometimes help resolve disputes over the meaning of statutory terms, Justice Barrett points to an old chestnut. Nebraska, 600 U. S., at 512, 514 (concurring opinion). Suppose a legislature used the phrase “whoever drew blood in the streets” in a criminal statute imposing punishment. As a matter of “common sense,” Justice Barrett says, it would “ `g[o] without saying' ” that the law doesn't apply to a surgeon accessing a patient's vein to save his life. Ibid. That is because the phrase “drew blood” is susceptible to two conventional idiomatic meanings: one “applicable to violent encounters with man or beast” and the other “to medical procedures,” A. Scalia & B. Garner, Reading Law 357 (2012) (Scalia & Garner). And any ordinary person faced with that phrase in a penal law would find it obvious which meaning applies.…

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