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