Legislative intent

<h2 id="sources">Sources</h2>
<p>Courts frequently look at the following sources in attempting to determine the goals and purposes that the legislative body had in mind when it passed the law:
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<ul><li>the text of the bill as proposed to the legislative body</li>
<li>amendments to the bill that were proposed and accepted or rejected</li>
<li>the record of hearings on the topic</li>
<li>legislative records or journals</li>
<li>speeches and floor debate made prior to the vote on the bill</li>
<li>legislative subcommittee minutes, factual findings, and reports</li>
<li>other relevant statutes that can be used to understand the definitions in the statute in question</li>
<li>other relevant statutes which indicate the limits of the statute in question</li>
<li>legislative files of the executive branch, such as the governor or president</li>
<li><a href="/facts/Case_law/2xMz9eeA">case law</a> prior to the statute or following it that demonstrates the problems the legislature attempted to address by the bill</li>
<li>constitutional determinations (would a certain section of a statute had been passed if it had had known about the constitutional invalidity of the other portions of the statute?)</li>
<li>legislative intent (the reason for passing the law)</li></ul>
<h2 id="application">Application</h2>
<p>Courts in the <a href="/facts/United_States/P0sCdLe5">United States</a> and elsewhere have developed a number of principles for handling such evidence of legislative intent. For example, many courts have suggested that the comments of those opposing a bill under consideration should be treated with skepticism on the principle that opponents of a bill may often exaggerate its practical consequences.
</p><p>One early example of an important <a href="/facts/US_Supreme_Court/rJHothwW">US Supreme Court</a> case that relied on legislative intent was <i><a href="/facts/Johnson_v._Southern_Pacific_Co./4IeJoXRB">Johnson v. Southern Pacific Co.</a></i> (1904) 196 U.S. 1. The Court decided that a man may sue the railroad for failing to have an automatic coupler since the legislature had attempted to remedy the problem of multiple injuries by railroad coupling.
</p><p>Others, most notably <a href="/facts/United_States_Supreme_Court/rJHothwW">United States Supreme Court</a> Justice <a href="/facts/Antonin_Scalia/t2gBrPj2">Antonin Scalia</a>, have objected generally to the use of such evidence, rather than reliance on the literal language of the statute.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:1" href="#fn:1"><sup>1</sup></a>: 391–393  They argue that such evidence of "legislative intent" is often created by proponents of a bill to persuade a court to interpret the statute in a way that they had failed to persuade the legislative body to adopt when they passed the bill.
</p><p>Those principles of legislative intent often overlap with those principles of <a href="/facts/Statutory_interpretation/GLR6rfcA">statutory construction</a> that courts have developed to interpret ambiguous or incomplete legislation. For example, the principle that courts should not interpret a statute to produce absurd or unintended results (the <a href="/facts/Golden_rule_(law)/3JCwXvkH">golden rule principle</a>) is often informed by evidence of what the proponents of a bill stated on the objectives to be achieved by the statute.
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<h2 id="see-also">See also</h2>
<ul><li><a href="/facts/Judicial_activism/z7CmpjxD">Judicial activism</a></li>
<li><a href="/facts/Statutory_interpretation/GLR6rfcA">Statutory interpretation</a></li>
<li><a href="/facts/Legislative_history/FfJgSyMI">Legislative history</a></li></ul>

<p><a href="/facts/Congressional_Research_Service/5y05h11b">Congressional Research Service</a> (August 31, 2008). <a href="http://opencrs.com/document/97-589/">"Statutory Interpretation: General Principles and Recent Trends"</a>.
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<h2 id="references">References</h2>

<ol>
<li id="fn:1"><p>Scalia, Antonin; Garner, Bryan A. (2012). Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts. St. Paul, Minnesota: Thomson/West. ISBN 978-0-314-27555-4. <a href="978-0-314-27555-4" target="_blank">978-0-314-27555-4</a> <a href="#fnref:1" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
</ol>

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Legislative intent