Your tax dollars at work.

In Taniguchi v. Kan Pacific Saipan, Ltd., released this week, the Supreme Court managed to expend 21 pages (25 if you count the syllabus) in a 6-3 opinion with dissent on a monumental question, to wit:

Whether "compensation of interpreters" under The Court Interpreters Act (yes, Virginia there is a Court Interpreters Act) covers the cost of translating documents.

Answer: No. The common meaning of "interpreter" is someone who translates the spoken word.

After the jump some thoughts on why Supreme Court clerks should have their word processors confiscated.

Justice Alito wrote the majority opinion, and the analysis is sound enough. In the absence of a definition by Congress, the answer to the question turned on the common meaning of the word "interpreter," which could be divined by consulting a collection of dictionaries dating from the time the statute passed.

The OED and others included a definition that would include document translation, but the majority was not prepared to accept definitions that were designated as secondary or obsolete in determining a "common" meaning.

Many dictionaries in use when Congress enacted the Court Interpreters Act in 1978 defined “interpreter” as one who translates spoken, as opposed to written, language. . . .(mind numbing dictionary quotes omitted) . . .

Pre-1978 legal dictionaries also generally defined the words “interpreter” and “interpret” in terms of oral translation. . . . (more mind numbing dictionary quotes) . . .

Against these authorities, respondent relies almost exclusively on Webster’s Third New International Dictionary (hereinafter Webster’s Third). The version of that dictionary in print when Congress enacted the Court Interpreters Act defined “interpreter” as “one that translates; esp: a person who translates orally for parties conversing in different tongues.” Webster’s Third 1182 (1976). The sense divider esp (for especially) indicates that the most common meaning of the term is one “who translates orally,” but that meaning is subsumed within the more general definition “one that translates.”

The dissent, in contrast, was prepared to accept such secondary or obsolete definitions:

The word “interpreters,” the Court emphasizes, commonly refers to translators of oral speech. . . . . But as the Court acknowledges, . . . “interpreters” is more than occasionally used to encompass those who translate written speech as well. . . . (mind numbing parenthetical cites omitted) . . .

In short, employing the word “interpreters” to includetranslators of written as well as oral speech, if not “the most common usage,” . . . is at least an “acceptable” usage . . .

But really: 25 pages? On taxable costs? Adam Liptak of the New York Times has observed that Supreme Court Opinions are getting longer without necessarily becoming better or more helpful. Taniguchi may be a different problem, but seriously:

• Three pages on the facts of the case which have no impact on the outcome?
• Three pages on the history of taxable costs back to 1793?
• Writing a dissent on this issue at all? Is that necessary?

The terse and yet eloquent Justice Holmes is spinning in his grave.

I don't see this a doctrinal problem on the court, only an issue of judgment and technology. Just because something is easy to write doesn't mean it should be put down on paper or that anybody wants to read it.

Law review wonks and Supreme Court clerks should be forced to write long hand on a legal pad before being issued a government word processor. Excess verbosity is nothing a little writer's cramp wouldn't cure.