====================================================================== CFJ 921 "The most recent amemdment to Rule 1671 caused all Organizations to be required to be dissolved." ====================================================================== Judge: Antimatter Justices: Michael (C), Steve (S), favor (J) Original Jmt: TRUE Judgement: FALSE Eligible: Andre, Antimatter, Blob, Chuck, Crito, Elde, elJefe, favor, General Chaos, Harlequin, KoJen, Michael, Morendil, Oerjan, Steve, Swann, Zefram Not eligible: Caller: Murphy Barred: - Disqualified: Vanyel On hold: - ====================================================================== History: Called by Murphy, Mon, 21 Apr 1997 02:44:57 -0700 Assigned to Antimatter, Fri, 25 Apr 1997 10:34:21 +0100 Judged TRUE, Fri, 25 Apr 1997 19:06:57 -0800 Published, Wed, 30 Apr 1997 09:17:27 +0100 Appealed by favor, Wed, 30 Apr 97 08:02:17 EDT Appealed by Andre, Wed, 30 Apr 1997 15:16:51 +0200 (MET DST) Appealed by General Chaos, Wed, 30 Apr 1997 08:30:37 -0500 Appealed by Crito, Wed, 30 Apr 1997 09:58:07 -0400 Appealed by Swann, Wed, 30 Apr 1997 15:51:58 -0400 (EDT) Appealed by Murphy, Wed, 30 Apr 1997 22:23:57 -0700 Appeals process begun, Tue, 6 May 1997 11:37:19 +0100 Steve SUSTAINS, Mon, 12 May 1997 16:08:14 +1000 (EST) favor OVERTURNS, Mon, 12 May 97 11:23:03 EDT Michael OVERTURNS, Tue, 13 May 1997 09:32:27 +0100 Appeal overturned, final Judgement: FALSE Published, Mon, 19 May 1997 09:15:50 +0100 ====================================================================== Appeal judgement by Speaker Steve: I hereby SUSTAIN Antimatter's Judgement. The relevant sentence of the Frankenstein Rule is: An Organization shall be required to be dissolved whenever any of the following conditions are true: ii) The continued existence of the Organization would require that the Organization have no legal Frankenstein Monster. Two readings have been proposed for this sentence. On the first, defended by Judge Antimatter, an Organization is dissolved if circumstances are such that (a) it exists, and (b) it has no Frankenstein Monster. This seems to me be a perfectly acceptable reading of the sentence. On a second reading, more is required than just these joint circumstances, namely, that it actually be the continued existence of the Organization that requires it not to have a Frankenstein Monster. Defenders of this view would take it as evidence against the dissolution of an Organization that it might have come to acquire an FM had it continued to exist. This is also a perfectly acceptable reading of the sentence. How to choose between them? If I were Judging this Statement rather than acting a Justice in an Appeal, I might find the task difficult. But as I am acting a Justice, a principle presents itself which will allow me to break the tie, namely, that one should be reluctant to overturn Judgements unless they are mistaken in law or have some other problem such as setting a bad precedent. Antimatter's Judgement is not of this kind. In Judging as he did, he seems to me have exercised his Judicial right to choose among acceptable alternatives, and I can see no principled reason to overturn his Judgement. I therefore rule that his Judgement be SUSTAINED. ====================================================================== Appeal Judgement by Justiciar favor: I hereby OVERTURN the original Judgement. The key consideration, which I believe was inadvertantly overlooked by the original Judge, is the meaning of the word "require" in > ii) The continued existence of the Organization would require > that the Organization have no legal Frankenstein Monster. "Require" is a strong word; the synonyms in my desk dictionary include "to make necessary", "to demand". If a thing X requires some other thing Y to have property P, then it must be essentially impossible for Y to have P without violating or removing X. Since it is quite easy to imagine how an Organization might continue to exist but still have a legal Frankenstein Monster, it cannot be the case that continued existence of the Organizations *required* them to have *no* legal Frankenstein Monster. It has been suggested that a weaker sense of "require" is in use here. As I understand it, the suggestion is that if, in some Gamestate, some X has property P, then the existence of X "requires" that it have P. This seems rather dubious to me, however, and I can find no evidence for it in the rules; every instance of "require" in the Rules seems to me to carry the ordinary strong sense of "require", as described above, with the exception of the use in question, and the use in R1397/5. Since to my knowledge R1397/5 has never been tested in this regard, we have no evidence (aside from questionable inquiries into intent) for the meaning of "require" there. Accepting this weak sense of "require" would, it seems to me, throw the meaning of a great many Rules into doubt: for instance, if "require" is basically synonymous with "result in", then Rule 1584/0 has a very broad and unexpected effect, making it impossible for Players who are On Hold to take any actions at all, unless the Rule governing the action specifically says that it applies to On Hold Players. This and other similar oddities suggests that this weak meaning of "require" is not appropriate within the Agoran Ruleset. So there. ====================================================================== Appeal Judgement by CotC Michael: I OVERTURN the judgement of CFJ 921. I agree with my Fellow Justice favor. I disagree with Fellow Justice Steve, who claims that it is reasonable to read "require" in "The continued existence of the Organization would require that the Organization have no legal Frankenstein Monster." so that its meaning is equivalent to "result in a situation such". There is neither game nor real-world precedent for such a reading. One can only appeal to the intent known to be behind the creation of the rules in R1397 (Dissolution of Organisations). However, it is well established principle that intent is something that Agoran justice uses only as a very last resort. In particular, an unambiguous reading that contradicts intent always takes precedence. Let us examine the phrase above closely. If it can be seen to be true of all Organisations in existence at the time of the Frankenstein Rule's amendment, then we can judge the CFJ true, because the context in the Frankenstein Rule requires it, and no other rule contradicts this provision. (Indeed, R1397 (Dissolution of Organisations) specifically states: "Other Rules can require an Organization to dissolve under other circumstances.") The presence of the "would" modifying the sentence's main verb indicates that we are in a position where we have to start assessing situations that may be counter-factual. So, let us suppose that we are in a world where our arbitrary Organisation continues to exist. Now, given this assumption, we have to demonstrate some requirement that the Organisation have no legal Frankenstein Monster. Where is such a requirement going to come from? It certainly doesn't come from the quoted provision above, which is simply a conditional clause telling us that if a requirement exists, then we should dissolve the Group. A very simple scan of the rules does not indicate any requirement that an Organisation not have a Frankenstein Monster (indeed, there are no rules outside the Frankenstein category that mention the FM at all), so therefore the provision is not true, so all Organisations are NOT required to be dissolved. Judgement ends. ====================================================================== Judgement: TRUE Reasons and arguments: This seems pretty simple. Since no Organization in existance at that time had a Frankenstein Monster, all Organizations were required to be dissolved. ====================================================================== (Caller's) Arguments: (none) ======================================================================