The K-Zone: Allen v Emmerson and others (1944)

This case ([1944] KB 362) demonstrates a problem in StatutoryInterpretation: determining whether the EjusdemGeneris rule should be applied or not. The passage in question is from the Barrow-in-Furness Corporation Act (1872), and looks like this:

``No theatre or other place of public entertainment (other than...) ... shall be opened or used unless the same shall first have been licensed by the Corporation...''

and the issue at state was whether a fun-fair was included in the description ``other places of public entertainment'' and therefore subject to control by the local authority as set out in the Act. On first hearing by magistrates it was ruled that ejusdem generis should apply, and the passage should refer to theatres and things in the same class as theatres (e.g., presumably, cinemas). However, the Kings Bench subjected the passage and its context to rigourous logical scrutiny; it held that the ``other than...'' clause introduced items that would be logically inconsistent with the view that ``other places of public entertainment'' was ejusdem generis with ``theatre''. In effect such an interpretation would be equivalent to saying ``all hats (other than gloves) and other headwear''. Since gloves are not headwear, it makes no sense to exclude them from the class `hats'.

This case is often cited as confirming the tendency for ejusdem generis to apply only to clauses where there is more than one specific item listed (e.g., X, Y, and other Zs). But in fact the decision to disapply the rule in this instance probably owed as much to the logical analysis above than to that principle.

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