Holiday v. United States

One of the wisest exponents of our judicial craft cautioned more than eighty years ago that “[statutes] should be construed, not as theorems of Euclid, but with some imagination of the purposes which lie behind them.” Lehigh Valley Coal Co. v. Yensavage, 218 F. 547, 553 (2d Cir.1914), cert. denied, 235 U.S. 705, 35 S.Ct. 282, 59 L.Ed. 434 (1915) (Learned Hand, J.) (quoted in Luck v. District of Columbia, 617 A.2d 509, 513 n. 4 (D.C.1992)). Unfortunately, my colleagues in the majority have not heeded Judge Hand’s precept. Instead, they have treated the principal issue before us rather like a…