In Marley v. Rawlings, the UK Supreme Court had to decide who should inherit the estate of Alfred Rawlings—who had mistakenly signed his wife’s Will (instead of his own). In this article, I will examine the issues of interpretative methodology arising from this case. The Supreme Court resolved the dispute by exercising its statutory power to rectify the putative Will, but it failed to articulate clearly its interpretative methodology and failed to give sufficient reasons for its interpretative conclusions. I will argue that its reasoning is best understood as primarily consequentialist. The Supreme Court also commented on the proper approach to interpreting Wills—and addressed criticisms of Lord Hoffmann’s influential approach to contractual interpretation. I will argue that the Supreme Court’s claim that all non-legislative legal documents should be interpreted using the same method is potentially misleading, and that its justification for restricting the courts’ ability to correct mistakes by interpretation—that it invades the territory of rectification—is misdirected. For, while corrective interpretations may endanger legitimate third-party expectations, those expectations are better protected by limiting the context information that is admissible in the interpretative process than by limiting the amount of ‘red ink’ that may be used in correcting a document through interpretation.

中文翻译：

---

混合遗嘱、整改和解释：马利诉罗林斯案

在马利诉罗林斯案中，英国最高法院必须决定谁应该继承阿尔弗雷德罗林斯的遗产——后者错误地签署了妻子的遗嘱（而不是他自己的遗嘱）。在这篇文章中，我将研究从这个案例中产生的解释方法论的问题。最高法院通过行使法定权力纠正推定的遗嘱来解决争议，但未能明确阐明其解释方法，也未能为其解释结论提供充分理由。我会争辩说，最好将其推理理解为主要的结果论者。最高法院还评论了解释遗嘱的正确方法——并解决了对霍夫曼勋爵有影响力的合同解释方法的批评。我将争辩说，最高法院关于所有非立法法律文件都应使用相同方法解释的主张具有潜在的误导性，其理由是限制法院通过解释纠正错误的能力——它侵犯了纠正的领域——被误导了。因为，虽然纠正解释可能危及合法的第三方期望，但通过限制解释过程中可接受的上下文信息比限制通过解释纠正文档时可能使用的“红色墨水”的数量更好地保护这些期望。 . 并且它限制法院通过解释纠正错误的能力的理由——它侵犯了纠正的领域——是错误的。因为，虽然纠正解释可能危及合法的第三方期望，但通过限制解释过程中可接受的上下文信息比限制通过解释纠正文档时可能使用的“红色墨水”的数量更好地保护这些期望。 . 并且它限制法院通过解释纠正错误的能力的理由——它侵犯了纠正的领域——是错误的。因为，虽然纠正解释可能危及合法的第三方期望，但通过限制解释过程中可接受的上下文信息比限制通过解释纠正文档时可能使用的“红色墨水”的数量更好地保护这些期望。 .