Okay, so turns out that there is a concept in law that describes how parts of laws and/or contracts are interpreted.
In law, severability (sometimes known as salvatorius, from Latin) refers to a provision in a contract which states that if parts of the contract are held to be illegal or otherwise unenforceable, the remainder of the contract should still apply. Sometimes, severability clauses will state that some provisions to the contract are so essential to the contract’s purpose that if they are illegal or unenforceable, the contract as a whole will be voided. However, in many legal jurisdictions, a severability clause will not be applied if it changes the fundamental nature of the contract, and that instead the contract will be void; thus, often this is not explicitly stated in the severability clause.
Severability clauses are also commonly found in legislation, where they state that if some provisions of the law, or certain applications of those provisions, are found to be unconstitutional, the remaining provisions, or the remaining applications of those provisions, will, nonetheless, continue in force as law.
Now, I didn’t know this. But I:
- Have never written a contract.
- Have written a law
- Voted a a bill that would eventually become a law.
The fact that there are people in this world who have done either 1, 2 and/or 3 and STILL don’t know this rule about Severability is NOT my problem.
But it DOES speak volumes as to their qualifications to do any of the above!