Article

• Jurisdiction: United States,Federal
• Citation: Vol. 35 No. 6 Pg. 29
• Pages: 29
• Publication year: 2022

ArticleVol. 35 No. 6 Pg. 29Utah Bar JournalDecember, 2022

November, 2022

In Defense of the Imperial System of Measurement in Law

by Steven Rinehart

In 1975, the United States enacted the Metric Conversion Act, amended by the Omnibus Trade Act of 1988, attempting to compel American citizenry to adopt the modern metric system as their official system of measurement (i.e., the International System of Units). The United States later directed all U.S. agencies to take all appropriate measures within their authority to convert to the metric system. Exec. Order No. 12770, 56 FR 35801, at 393 (July 29, 1991). Less than fifty years earlier, the consensus view of the U.S. Congress had been that the metric system is inferior to the English. Congressional Hearing Relative to the Compulsory Introduction of the Metric System, on H.R. 10, Cong. 237 (1926) (statement of Samuel S. Dale to the Committee on Coinage, Weights and Measures).

Questions about whether weights and measures should be expressed in the imperial system or the metric system in evidence, statutes, and case law have never been fully resolved. In many states, legislation arbitrarily reverts from the imperial system to metric system within subsections of the same statute. See, e.g., Utah Code Ann. § 58-37c-19 (outlawing distribution and possession of methamphetamines in ounces); id. § 58-37c-20.5 (outlawing purchase of pseudoephedrine in grams); see also, e.g., 18 V.S.A. § 4231(a)(3), (outlawing possession of cocaine measured in ounces); 18 V.S.A. § 4231(a)(2) (outlawing possession of cocaine measured in grams). The Supreme Court also appears to have vacillated about how best to express weights and measures. See, e.g., Whole WomanHealth v. Hellerstedt, 579 U.S. 582 (2016) (expressing distance in miles using the imperial system); Massachusetts v. EPA, 549 U.S. 497 (2007) (converting evidence presented in the imperial system to metric system units). And although the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) technically requires applicants to use the metric system, its does not enforce this requirement.

Academics have long advocated for adoption of the metric system as a way of resolving this conflict, while blue-collar American works have resisted the same. Emerging evidence further discussed below appears supportive of the blue-collar workers reluctance.

Historical Controversy

Pressure from continental Europe to adopt the metric system began when the metric system was invented in 1791 during the French Revolution by Pierre-Simon Laplace. Thomas Jefferson rejected European pressure to convert, predicting the metric system would fail. U.S. Dep. Of Comm., A History of the Metric System Controversy in the United States, Nat'l Bur. Stand. Spec. Publ. 345-10. John Quincy Adams was forced to write a 117-page report in 1821 on weights and measures, concluding that the metric system was unnaturally contrived. He said, [o]f all the nations of European origin, ours is that which least requires any change in the system of their weights and measures. John Quincy Adams, Report Upon Weights and Measures, p. 93: U.S. Senate (1821). Even Napoleon himself ridiculed the metric system and prohibited its use in the First French Empire, which had created it. Napoleon didn personally admire the metric system that Laplace invented, saying, I can understand the twelfth...