In the Yale Law Review Forum, Emily J. Barnet (Yale Law School JD '15) has the essay Hobby Lobby and the Dictionary Act (124 Yale L.J. F. 11 (2014)). Here is an excerpt:
Before the end of this month, the Supreme Court will decide Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. and in so doing will determine whether the Religious Freedom and Restoration Act (RFRA) exempts from the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) contraception mandate closely held, for-profit companies whose owners oppose contraception on religious grounds. RFRA states that “[the] Government shall not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion.” A central issue in the case is whether corporate entities are “persons” covered by RFRA. That is, does RFRA extend religious freedoms to for-profit corporations?
The debate over how best to answer this questionhas largely overlooked the opportunity the case presents for the Court to resolve a longstanding problem of statutory interpretation: how courts should determine when to apply the U.S. Code’s Dictionary Act. The Dictionary Act, enacted in 1871, instructs courts to apply to all federal statutes definitions of certain common words (including “person”) and basic rules of grammatical construction (such as the rule that plural words include the singular) “unless context indicates otherwise.” The Act’s legislative history suggests that its purpose was “to avoid prolixity and tautology in drawing statutes and to prevent doubt and embarrassment in their construction.” However, in line with general trends in statutory interpretation, courts have applied the Act inconsistently for the past century. The courts’ characterizations of the Dictionary Act have ranged from a tool of last resort10 to a presumptive guide.
Posted at 6:27 AM