Literal Rule. The literal rule was used in a case called Berriman v NE Railway Company (1946),

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Literal Rule

The literal rule is a simple rule. Words should be given their plain, ordinary, literal meaning, even if the result is not very sensible. The reason this rule exists is because it would be wrong for the courts to guess what Parliament actually meant when the act was passed.  The literal rule was used in a case called Berriman v NE Railway Company (1946), a railway worker was killed by a train while doing maintenance work, oiling points along a railway line. Berriman’s widow tried to claim compensation because there had not been a lookout man provided by the railway company as stated in the Fatal Accidents Act. This act stated that a lookout should be provided for men working on or near the railway for the purposes of ‘relaying and repairing’ it. The court took the words ‘relaying’ and ‘repairing’  in their literal meaning and said that oiling points was maintaining the line and not relaying or repairing it, so that Mrs Berriman’s claim failed.  The literal rule makes law more certain but can lead to ‘unfair’ decisions as seen in the case above.

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The literal rule developed in the early nineteenth century and has been the main rule applied ever since then. This rule has been used in many cases, even though the result has made nonsense of the law. Another example of how the literal rule was used is in a case called Whitely v Chappell (1868), the defendant was charged under a section which made it an offence to impersonate ‘any person entitled to vote.’ The defendant had pretended to be a person whose name was on the voters list, but who had died. The court held that the defendant ...

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