The court will have a look at _surrounding words in similar sections of the statute, to see what else the statute has talked about. In some cases, similar words may be more precisely defined elsewhere.

If it is claimed that another item, which is not included in the list, is covered by the statute, then any such claim will fail. This is because the list is considered considered complete.

That will lead the court to a conclusion that the words in question should be interpreted_ in the same manner.

the case involved interpreting a section which set out rules for ‘interest, annuities or other annual interest’. The first use of the word ‘ interest’ on its own could have meant, whether paid daily, weekly, monthly or annually.

Mention the result of the case - because of the words ‘other annual interest’ in the section, and the meaning of ‘annuities’ to have been to pay money annually, the court decided that ‘interest’ could only mean annual interest.

Make sure that you clearly show how this case used the rule of interpretation

The opposite would apply if there were general words at the end of the list,

the court had to consider whether the Statute of Frauds 1677 (which required a contract for the sale of ‘goods, wares and merchandise’ of more than £10 to be evidenced in writing) applied to a contract for the sale of stocks and shares.

Mention the result of the case - The list ‘goods, wares and merchandise’ was not followed by any general words, so the court held that only contracts for those three types of things were affected by the statute; because stocks and shares were not mentioned they were not caught by the statute.

The defendant was a bookmaker who made his living in Tattershall’s Ring, an outdoor part of the claimant’s racecourse. He was charged with a bookmaking offence, which made it an offence to keep “a house, office, room or other place for betting”

He was clearly not operating a house/office/room, as his business was outdoors. So the question was whether the general words “other place for betting” applied to his stall. A literal interpretation of “other place for betting” would seem to apply to him, because his stall was somewhere that people could place bets.

However, the phrase “other place for betting” had to be interpreted in a way which was consistent with the list of specific words “house, office, room”, which appeared next to the words “other place for betting” in the statute

The court said he was not guilty of the offence. Since the examples were all of places which were indoors – the reference to “other place” had to be interpreted in the light of the examples given.