2022 Legal Opinions
Court Opinion | United States v. Rice
United States v. Rice
36 F.4th 578 (4th Cir. 2022).
Corpus linguistics is used to support the conclusion that the ordinary public meaning of strangulation involved intentional conduct. it is noted that corpus linguistics is gaining traction as an interpretive tool.
Court Opinion | Jones v. Bonta
Jones v. Bonta
34 F.4th 704 (9th Cir. 2022).
Thought corpus linguistics isn’t ultimately applied to the case, it is noted as a powerful tool.
Court Opinion | United States v. Carson
United States v. Carson
55 F.4th 1053 (6th Cir. 2022).
BYU’s Corpus of Contemporary American English (http://corpus.byu.edu/coca) is cited in confirming the understanding of the term “substantial”.
Court Opinion | Fulkerson v. Unum Life Insurance Company of America
Fulkerson v. UNUM LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY OF AMERICA
No (6th Cir. June 3, 2022).
Corpus linguistics is used to assess the usage of the term “reckless driving” and the way it fits within the ordinary meaning of “crime”. It is noted that corpus linguistics can foster a more rigorous analysis of a term’s ordinary meaning than a dictionary can.
Court Opinion | Matthews v. The Industrial Commission of Arizona
Matthews v. The Industrial Commission of Arizona
No. CV-21-0192-PR (Ariz. Nov. 23, 2022).
The usefulness of corpus linguistics is noted. In this case, it is used to clarify the meaning of “accident by injury”.
Court Opinion | Gulf Shores City Board of Education v. Mackey
GULF SHORES CITY BOARD OF EDUCATION v. Mackey
No. 1210353 (Ala. Dec. 22, 2022).
Corpus linguistics is highlighted as a research tool that aids the difficult issues of constitutional and statutory interpretation.
Court Opinion | Rouch World v. Department of Civil Rights
ROUCH WORLD v. DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL RIGHTS
987 N.W.2d 501, 510 Mich. 398 (2022).
The Corpus of Historical American English is used to provide evidence regarding how the public understood the meaning of sex discrimination in the 1970s.
Court Opinion | State v. Carter
State v. Carter
504 P.3d 179, 2022 U.T. App 9 (Utah Ct. App. 2022).
Carter undertakes an extremely thorough analysis with the assistance of corpus linguistics, dictionaries, and case law of the phrase “used for” in the statutory definition of “habitable structure” to establish that the statute defines these structures based on their current use.
Court Opinion | Health Freedom Defense Fund Inc. v. Biden
Health Freedom Defense Fund, Inc. v. Biden
599 F. Supp. 3d 1144 (M.D. Fla. 2022).
Corpus linguistics is used to find the customary usage of the term “sanitation”.
Court Opinion | United States v. Seefried
United States v. SEEFRIED
No. 21-cr-287 (TNM) (D.C. Oct. 31, 2022).
Publicly available databases of language, such as lncl8.lawcorpus.byu.edu, are used to identify the meaning of “administration of justice”.