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Interpretation of Unambiguous Language; Doctrine of Expressio Unius est Exclusio Alterious; Criteria for Declaratory Judgment 

In a contract action, the Second Department laid out the black letter law on the interpretation of unambiguous language, the doctrine of “exclusio unius est exclusio alterious,” and the criteria for a declaratory judgment.  The controversy concerned the amount of a bonus which was determined, according to the terms of the contract, by whether the plaintiff resigned or was fired, a disputed issue:

The defendant acknowledges that if the language of a written contract is free of ambiguity, the court must determine its meaning as a matter of law based upon the writing alone, without resort to extrinsic evidence …. Contrary to the defendant’s contention, the language of paragraph 4.2 clearly limits bonus compensation to a share of distributions based upon either the sale of all of RDL’s assets, or some of RDL’s assets. Pursuant to the doctrine of “exclusio unius est exclusio alterious,” which means that the expression of one thing is the exclusion of the other …, the references to the sale of assets implies that bonus compensation does not apply to distributions based upon something other than the sale of assets. If the parties had intended for bonus compensation to be based upon all distributions, these references to the sale of assets would have been unnecessary.  * * * The courts may issue declaratory judgments declaring the rights of the parties only where there is a justiciable controversy …. There is no justiciable controversy warranting declaratory relief if the controversy is over a future event “beyond the control of the parties and may never occur” … . However, in the instant case, the future event is in the control of RDL …, and is likely to occur … . Therefore, the question of whether the defendant was discharged without cause or resigned constitutes a justiciable controversy, which must be resolved by the Supreme Court after a trial.  Realtime Data, LLC v Melone, 2013 NY Slip Op 01540, 2011-11936, Index No 50021/10, 2nd Dept. 3-13-13

 

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