The author of the passage suggests that in English law a substantive interpretation of a legal rule might be warrante...

jingjingxiao11111@gmail.com on January 31, 2022

“Once the legal rule—that a will is invalid for lack of proper witnessing—has been clearly established, and the (45) legality of the rule is not in question, application of that rule precludes from consideration substantive arguments in favor of the will's validity or enforcement.”

I am not an instructor but I will try to help. The above line reference supports that “legality of the rule”, when “in question,” can support substantive reasoning of the rule.

The line reference is stating that the opposite is true. That is, when the legality of the rule is not in question, application of that rule avoids substantive interpretation that will favor the will’s validity or enforcement. By contrast, we can assume the opposite is true: that is, when the legality of the rule is in question, it can support substantive reasoning of that rule as now the enforcement of the rule is open to judicial interpretation.

I hope that I explained it correctly. Please feel free to correct me. Thank you.

Abigail on February 1, 2022

Hello @yckim2180,

This question asks us to infer the circumstances in which a “substantive interpretation” of a legal rule would be warranted. Paragraph 2 refers to what substantial interpretation is, while paragraph 3 compares it to formal reasoning and gives the circumstances in which it can apply. The line evidence comes from lines 42-48: “Once the legal rule—that a will is invalid for lack of proper witnessing—has been clearly established, and the legality of the rule is not in question, application of that rule precludes from consideration substantive arguments in favor of the will's validity or enforcement.” These lines tell us that substance arguments do NOT apply when the legality of the rule is NOT in question and when the context/enforcement has been clearly established. From this we can infer that substantial arguments might be warranted in the opposite circumstances (i.e., when the legality IS in question and the enforcement is open to interpretation).

I hope this clarifies things. Feel free to follow up if you still have questions.

jingjingxiao11111@gmail.com on March 30, 2022

Thank you! I realized that I made a mistake in my previous post. I should have said "when the legality is in question and the enforcement is open to interpretation, substantial arguments might be warranted."

Thank you for correcting me!