Appellate Practice,
Law Practice
May 24, 2022
Mayday! M’aidez! You shall reconsider your thoughts about “may!”
What about all those statutes defining may as permissive and only shall as mandatory? What makes may something other than may, as in “may only?” The answer is not in linguistics, but legislative history.
Don Willenburg
Partner
Gordon & Rees LLP
appellate law, litigation, special master
1111 Broadway Ste 1700
Oakland , CA 94607
Phone: (510) 463-8600
Fax: (510) 984-1721
Email: dwillenburg@grsm.com
Stanford Univ Law School
Don is chair of the firm's Appellate Practice Group in Oakland, and an attorney member of the Information Technology Advisory Committee to the Judicial Council. The views expressed are his own.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that “may” is permissive and “shall” is mandatory. At least five statutes specifically so provide. (Gov. Code, § 14; Bus. & Prof. Code, § 19; Lab. Code, § 15; Prob. Code, § 12.) And, cases so holding are legion.
Like many other “universally acknowledged truths,” however, this is not universally applicable, and does not always play out as one might suspect. In Pacific Fertility Cases (May 11, 2022,...
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