Canons of Construction

Legislative history and other extrinsic aids are consulted only if the statute is ambiguous. If the language is clear, its plain meaning controls and the inquiry ends.

Arizona: Arizona rule: courts apply plain language and turn to intent aids (history, purpose, canons) only when a statute is ambiguous or plain meaning yields an absurd result. This is the door to everything else in this record.

Give the words their ordinary, everyday meaning unless the legislature defined them or a technical usage is plain. The best indicator of intent is the language itself.

Arizona: A.R.S. § 1-213: words and phrases are construed according to common and approved usage; technical words and those with an acquired legal meaning take that meaning.

A reading that produces an absurd, impossible, or plainly unintended result is avoided even when the literal text points to it.

Arizona: Arizona courts depart from literal text where a literal reading would lead to an absurdity the legislature could not have intended.

When a general term follows a list of specific items, the general term is limited to things of the same kind or class as the specific ones.

Arizona: Applied in Arizona to catch-all phrases like 'or other …' at the end of an enumeration — the catch-all is read down to the class the specifics establish.

The expression of one thing implies the exclusion of others. A deliberate list is presumed exhaustive as to its category.

Arizona: Arizona courts treat an itemized statutory list as excluding unlisted items, unless context shows the list is illustrative.

A word is known by the company it keeps: an ambiguous term in a series is colored by the words surrounding it.

Arizona: Used in Arizona to read a vague term in a list consistently with its neighbors rather than at its broadest possible sweep.

A qualifying word or phrase attaches to the noun or clause immediately preceding it, not to more remote ones — unless a comma or sense indicates otherwise.

Arizona: Arizona follows the last-antecedent rule but treats a comma before the modifier as a signal the modifier reaches the whole series.

Give effect to every word and clause; a construction that renders language superfluous, void, or meaningless is disfavored.

Arizona: Arizona courts construe statutes so that no clause is rendered superfluous, void, contradictory, or insignificant.

Read a provision in the context of the entire act; subsections, definitions, and the title inform the meaning of any one clause.

Arizona: Arizona reads a statute as a whole, harmonizing its provisions and giving meaning to the statutory scheme rather than isolated words.

Statutes relating to the same subject or having the same general purpose are read together as though they were one law.

Arizona: Arizona construes statutes on the same subject in pari materia even when enacted at different times, to keep the scheme harmonious.

When a general and a specific provision conflict, the specific provision controls as an exception to the general one.

Arizona: Arizona resolves an irreconcilable conflict by giving effect to the more specific statute over the more general.

Repeals by implication are not favored; where two statutes can be harmonized, both are given effect.

Arizona: Arizona will find an implied repeal only where two acts are irreconcilably repugnant and cannot both stand.

Where a statute is susceptible to two readings, one of which raises serious constitutional doubt, adopt the reading that avoids the constitutional problem.

Arizona: Arizona construes statutes to preserve constitutionality where a reasonable interpretation allows it.

A genuinely ambiguous criminal statute is construed in favor of the accused — the government must speak clearly before it punishes.

Arizona: In Arizona this is tempered by A.R.S. § 13-104: the criminal code is construed according to the fair meaning of its terms to promote justice and effect its objects — NOT by the old strict-construction rule. Lenity applies only to genuine residual ambiguity after fair-meaning analysis.

A remedial or protective statute is construed liberally to advance the remedy and suppress the mischief the legislature targeted.

Arizona: Arizona construes remedial and consumer-protection statutes liberally to accomplish their protective purpose.

A statute is presumed to apply prospectively only; it is not applied retroactively unless the legislature expressly declared it retroactive.

Arizona: A.R.S. § 1-244: no statute is retroactive unless expressly declared. (Note the separate rule that purely procedural/remedial changes may apply to pending matters.)