Re: I wonder why...

Posted by lawguy (216.30.212.58) on April 10, 2003 at 09:36:43:

In Reply to: I wonder why... posted by nc on April 09, 2003 at 17:02:16:

Legislative comments are just "explanations" at the end of a statute that gives the courts an idea of what the legislature was intending to do. The UCC (Uniform Commercial Code) was actually written by a bunch of law professors, judges, and lawyers some time ago as a "suggested law." Most, if not all, states have adopted it, either verbatim or with slight alterations. I imagine that there are many comments from the committee that wrote the UCC in the first go round.

In each state, the legislature can freely adopt any provision of the UCC it desires, and add any or no comments it wants, just as with any other state law. The comments can be found after the actual text of the statute, or at the beginning of each section or at the beginning of the entire Act itself. They are not actual law and are not binding; they simply give some direction to the courts about the intent of the legislature in enacting that statute.

The differences between the MD and the NC courts arose from the different legislative comments to the UCC made by the MD and NC legislatures. Because of these different comments, the courts interpreted the statutes differently, and reasonably so. Had the comments not been there, then both courts might have reached the same conclusion.

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