Words and Phrases - "ejusdem generis"
Walker v. Ritchie, 2006 SCC 45, [2006] 2 S.C.R. 428
The successful party, Mr. Ritchie, asked to have included, in his award of costs, a premium of $192,600 given that his counsel had carried the litigation for four years without remuneration. In the course of finding that this premium did not fall within the ambit of Rule 57.01(1)(i) of the Ontario Rules of Civil Procedure (similar to Rule 147(3)(j) of the Tax Court Rules), namely “any other matter relevant to the question of costs”, since it did not have anything in common with the other factors relating to costs enumerated in Rule 57.01(1) (a) to (h), Rothstein J stated that these other factors provided guidance as to the type of matters that might be considered relevant in Rule 57.01(i), and further stated (at para. 25):
Indeed, the Latin maxim ejusdem generis, or the limited class rule, is helpful in determining legislative intent when a court is faced with a list of items followed by a general term. As R. Sullivan explains in Sullivan and Driedger on the Construction of Statutes (4th ed. 2002), at pp. 175-77, the scope of the general term may be limited to any genus or class to which the specific items all belong. An examination of the factors that were expressly included at the time the costs award was fixed in this case reveals some common features among them.
Lichtman v. The Queen, 2017 TCC 252 (Informal Procedure)
In the course of discussing the meaning of “congregation” in the phrase “ministering to a diocese, parish or congregation” in s. 8(1)(c), Campbell J discussed the noscitur a sociis and ejusdem generis rules as follows (at paras. 193-194):
In very general terms, the difference between these two statutory construction terms is that the noscitur a sociis rule is used, where the meaning of a general word in a series of words is to be determined, then all of the words or terms in the series are engaged in order to define the commonality among them so that a particular meaning can be assigned to that word or term that is in question. Ejusdem generis determines the meaning of a general word used at the end of a list of specific items by confining it to subjects that are comparable to the earlier terms or in other words, by determining the commonality in order to ascertain what types of items might fall within the broader general term that the statute uses. By contrast in using the noscitur a sociis rule, all of the items in the series are reviewed in order to determine their commonality and, in turn, give meaning to the general term utilized in the series.
Clearly it is the associated words rule or noscitur a sociis that should be used in interpreting clause 8(1)(c)(ii)(B) of the Act.
| Locations of other summaries | Wordcount | |
|---|---|---|
| Tax Topics - Income Tax Act - Section 8 - Subsection 8(1) - Paragraph 8(1)(c) | religious instructors at a Hebrew academy did not qualify for the clergy residence deduction | 284 |