Oxford Comma Caused Legal Dispute

In a 2017 lawsuit, the lack of a single punctuation mark became the central issue in a multi-million dollar dispute between Oakhurst Dairy and its drivers. The case hinged on a Maine state law that listed activities exempt from overtime pay. The specific phrase in question was: "the canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for shipment or distribution of" perishable goods. The company argued that "packing for shipment" and "distribution" were two separate, exempt activities. The drivers, however, argued that the phrase "packing for shipment or distribution" referred to the single activity of packing goods, whether for shipment or for distribution. Since they only distributed the products but did not pack them, they claimed the exemption did not apply to them.

This ambiguity stems from the absence of a serial comma, more popularly known as the Oxford comma. This is the comma placed before the final conjunction (like 'and' or 'or') in a list of three or more items. While style guides like the Associated Press often omit it for brevity, legal and academic writing typically insists on it to prevent exactly this kind of confusion. Had the law read "packing for shipment, or distribution," it would have clearly delineated two separate activities, and the company likely would have won.

Because the text was ambiguous, the court ruled in favor of the drivers, citing a legal standard that requires ambiguities in laws to be interpreted in a way that benefits the employee. The decision resulted in a $5 million settlement for the drivers. In response, Maine's legislature amended the law, replacing the commas in the list with semicolons to ensure such a costly grammatical misunderstanding could never happen again.