What should a court do when the plain words are unclear, or when a literal reading would produce a result no one could have wanted? One answer, with a long history, is to ask what the statute is for.
Key idea
Purposivists read a statute in light of the problem it was meant to solve and its evident purpose, especially when the words are unclear or a literal reading would defeat the statute's aims. They start with the text too; they differ from textualists in how much weight purpose gets.
Why it works
Legislatures pass laws to accomplish goals, and words are imperfect tools. A reader who knows the goal can often see which of two possible meanings fits. The idea is old: in Heydon's Case (1584) an English court said judges should ask what "mischief" (problem) the statute addressed and how it meant to remedy it. In the United States, Henry Hart and Albert Sacks's teaching materials The Legal Process (1958) urged judges to treat statutes as the work of reasonable people pursuing reasonable purposes. Purposivists argue that this makes statutes work as intended and respects the legislature better than a wooden reading would. Textualists answer that purposes are often stated at a high level, that every statute is a compromise that pursues its purpose only so far, and that the words are the best evidence of how far.
Worked example: Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States (1892)
A federal law banned paying the passage of a foreigner to come to the United States to perform "labor or service of any kind." A church in New York paid for an English minister to come be its rector. Did the church violate the law?
- Read literally, a minister's work is "service of any kind."
- The Court looked at the title of the act, the evil it targeted (contracts for cheap manual labor) and its history.
- It concluded Congress did not mean to reach a church hiring a pastor, and said a thing may be within the letter of a statute yet not within its spirit.
Answer: No. The Court read the law by its purpose, not its broadest literal sense. (Textualists often cite this case as an example of what to avoid.)
Worked example: An absurd result
A city ordinance says "No one may sleep in the train station." A traveler dozes for ten minutes in a chair waiting for a late train; a person sets up a bed for the night. How might a purposivist and a textualist read the ordinance?
- Purposivist: the ordinance targets using the station as a place to spend the night, so the dozing traveler is outside it and the overnight sleeper is inside.
- Textualist: "sleep" in ordinary meaning covers both, but a textualist may also ask whether the context (a station rule) shows "sleep" means bedding down there; most textualists accept a narrow absurdity exception.
- Both reach the overnight sleeper; they may differ on the traveler and on how they get there.
Answer: The overnight sleeper is covered under either approach; the methods differ at the edges.
Common mistake
Thinking purposivists ignore the text. Purposivists start with the text too; they differ in how much weight purpose gets when the text is unclear or leads to an odd result. Check by asking each side: "what would change your mind?" A textualist points to the words; a purposivist points to the words read in light of the goal.
This is an educational course, not legal advice.