Peoples Drug Stores, Inc. v. District of Columbia

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• noting that “statutes are to be construed in a manner which assumes that [the Council] acted logically and rationally”
• noting that literal meaning will not be followed, inter alia, where result is absurd
• acknowledging, inter alia, that “the literal meaning of a statute will not be followed when it produces absurd results,” and “whenever possible, the words of a statute are to be construed to avoid obvious injustice” (internal quotation marks omitted)
• “Where legislative materials are without probative value, or contradictory, or ambiguous, they should not be permitted to control the customary meaning of words.”
• “Where legislative materials are without probative value, or contradictory, or ambiguous, they should not be permitted to control the customary meaning of words.”
• “[A] court should look beyond the ordinary meaning of the words of a statute only where there are persuasive reasons for doing so.” (internal quotation marks omitted)

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).