Home > West's Encyclopedia of American Law > Canons of Construction

The system of basic rules and maxims applied by a court to aid in its interpretation of a written document, such as a statute or contract.

In the case of a statute, certain canons of construction can help a court ascertain what the drafters of the statute—usually Congress or a state legislature—meant by the language used in the law. When a dispute involves a contract, a court will apply other canons of interpretation, or construction, to help determine what the parties to the agreement intended at the time they made the contract.

Statutory Construction

When considering a statute, a court will apply rules of construction only when the language contained in the statute is ambiguous. Under the "plain-meaning" rule, if the intention of the legislature is "so apparent from the face of the statute that there can be no question as to its meaning, there is no need for the court to apply canons of construction"...