How to proofread questionable or downright wrong legalese (2)

FOR starters in last week’s column, I presented a couple of proofreading errors in two Supreme Court rulings that were brought to my attention by one of its staff, part of whose job is to proofread court decisions and resolutions drafted by a ponente or the designated writer from among the justices. The first glitch is the needless, wickedly subversive presence of the article “a” in a labor dispute ruling, and the second, a rather jolting subject-verb disagreement arising from misuse of the plural “were” in a demand-for-payment ruling.

Right off, a reader who goes by the username zyggy asked me online if those “infallible inadvertent errors”—his words, not mine—could be called “loopholes.” I told him I didn’t think so, for a “loophole” is defined as “an ambiguity or omission in the text through which the intent of a statute, contract, or obligation may be evaded.”