Less = More

There’s some controversy about relying on foreign law to interpret U.S. statutes.  But what about relying on foreign architects?  It was Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, after all, who said that “less is more,” and the Ninth Circuit has just agreed, holding that the words “less than seven days” in a statute actually mean “more than seven days.”  The word “less” in the 2005 Class Action Fairness Act, said the court, was a “typogaphical error.”  The court thus concluded Congress did not mean to create a strict seven-day appeal window, but rather to provide an unlimited time for appeals.  Five judges dissented from the full court’s denial of en banc reconsideration.

[Frank Snyder]