Legal Question in Administrative Law in Virginia

Re: Defintions in Contracts

I agree with Mr. Hendrickson that it is hard to say out of context.

Virginia follows a plain language approach to contracts and statutes. Courts try to apply what the words mean to real people in ordinary usage. In fact, Virginia courts are more likely to quote from a common use dictionary than Black's Law Dictionary in most situations.

Generally, the order within the sentence is not a controlling factor, unless it tells us what the plain language meaning is to an average person in real life.

Here the most precise parts of the definition are a single call sign and only one transmitter on the air at a time.

The phrase "single or multiple individuals" indicates that it does not matter how many individuals there are, so that it is not a meaningful part of the definition. That could be anything.

As a result the most precise part of the definition -- a single call sign and one transmitter on the air -- is the most meaningful part of the definition.

But another rule as Mr. Hendrickson points out is that you read the entire document as a whole. So if the entire document makes it clear what the meaning is, that is important also.

Re: Defintions in Contracts

Without reviewing the entire contract and its underlying factual predicate, I think it would be very difficult to render a credible opinion on this particular matter.