How to interpret statutes - or not: the phantom of plain meaning.

• Author: Wisotsky, Steven

The government alleged that in 1926, Timothy McBoyle hired a pilot to steal an airplane and fly it from Ottawa, Illinois, to Guymon, Oklahoma. (1) Although McBoyle denied the charge, the jury convicted him of interstate transportation of a stolen "motor vehicle" in violation of a federal statute. The operative language of the National Motor Vehicle Theft Act of 1919 defined "motor vehicle" to include "an automobile, automobile truck, automobile wagon, motor cycle, or any other self-propelled vehicle not designed for running on rails." (2)

On appeal, the 10th Circuit affirmed the conviction, rejecting McBoyle's contention that "the word 'vehicle' includes only conveyances that travel on the ground; that an airplane is not a vehicle but a ship; and that, under the doctrine of ejusdem generis, the phrase 'any other self-propelled vehicle' cannot be construed to include an airplane." (3)

Canvassing several dictionaries, the court of appeals determined that "vehicle" means "[a]ny receptacle, or means of transport, in which something is carried or conveyed, or travels." (4) It concluded that "the derivation and the definition of the word 'vehicle' indicate that it is sufficiently broad to include any means or device by which persons or things are carried or transported, and it is not limited to instrumentalities used for traveling on land ..." (5)

The court acknowledged ambiguity in the statute insofar as a land-based vehicle "may be the limited or special meaning of the word." But, "[w]e do not think it would be inaccurate to say that a ship or vessel is a vehicle of commerce." (6)

An airplane is self-propelled, by means of a gasoline motor. It is designed to carry passengers and freight from place to place. ... It furnishes a rapid means for transportation of persons and comparatively light articles of freight and express. It therefore serves the same general purpose as an automobile, automobile truck, or motorcycle. It is of the same general kind or class as the motor vehicles specifically enumerated in the statutory definition and, therefore, construing an airplane to come within the general term, "any other self-propelled vehicle," does not offend against the maxim of ejusdem generis. (7)

The Supreme Court granted certiorari and reversed the court of appeals in McBoyle v. United States, 283 U.S. 25, 27 (1931). Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, writing for a unanimous court, held that the statute, making it a federal crime to move a stolen "motor vehicle" in interstate commerce, did not apply to a stolen airplane. "No doubt etymologically it is possible to use the word [vehicle] to signify a conveyance working on land, water or air ..." (8) Indeed, that is the "plain meaning" of the word vehicle, as the 10th Circuit had found by both "derivation and definition." (9) But the Supreme Court was otherwise persuaded: "It is impossible to read words that so carefully enumerate the different forms of motor vehicles and have no reference of any kind to aircraft, as including airplanes under a term that usage more and more precisely confines to a different class." (10)

The Court alluded to but did not explicitly invoke familiar maxims or canons of construction that were seemingly applicable. It did not, for example, directly apply the rule of ejusdem generis to narrow the broad language "any other self-propelled vehicle" to the class or kind of ground-based vehicles enumerated by the statute. The 10th Circuit had reached the opposite conclusion, i.e., that planes were of "the general class as an automobile and a motorcycle." (11) And it did not explicitly invoke the rule of resort to legislative history to interpret ambiguous statutes; there is only a passing observation that airplanes "were not mentioned in the reports or in the debates in Congress." (12) Nor did it explicitly invoke the familiar rule of lenity to resolve a statutory ambiguity against the government in a criminal prosecution, although the dissenting judge on the court of appeals had done so. (13)

The Supreme Court chose the rationale that contemporary usage had effectively narrowed the "plain meaning" of motor vehicle in the dictionary sense to land-based vehicles: "But in everyday speech 'vehicle' calls up the picture of a thing moving on land." (14) Building on that linguistic premise, the Court relied additionally upon the principle of fair play: "It is reasonable that a fair warning should be given to the world in language that the common world will understand, of what the law intends to do if a certain line is passed. To make the warning fair, so far as possible the line should be clear." (15)

The argument based on unfairness to McBoyle as an individual is dubious because he clearly knew that he was conspiring to commit and committing (as an aider and abettor) the ancient common law crime of larceny. Larceny is malum in se, a "ten commandments" crime (Deuteronomy 5:17, "Neither shalt thou steal"). (16) Every sane person knows that it is wrong to steal. The only colorable point about lack of fair warning was whether a reasonable person would know that he or she was committing a crime against the United States in addition to...