The U.S. Supreme Court accepts only around 80 cases a year, most of them involving Americans, and it is a rare event to have a Japanese citizen\u2019s dispute come before the court.<\/p>\n
That is the case this week, however. Kouichi Taniguchi, a former professional baseball player, will have his case heard at the highest court in the U.S. on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The dispute sounds as if it were cooked up by some avant-garde European literary theorist: How should the court interpret the meaning of \u201cinterpretation\u201d?<\/p>\n
Consider the facts. In 2008, Mr. Taniguchi filed suit against a hotel in Saipan, accusing it of negligence after he fell through a wooden deck on the premises in 2006. The hotel won and, following a provision in U.S. federal law that says the winner can recoup \u201cinterpretation\u201d costs, sent Mr. Taniguchi a bill for $5,517.20, according to court records. Of that amount, $5,257.20 was actually for document translations including some of Mr. Taniguchi\u2019s medical records from Japan.<\/p>\n
Mr. Taniguchi\u2019s lawyers objected, saying the word \u201cinterpretation\u201d doesn\u2019t include translation of written material. They lost in a federal appeals court in San Francisco and brought their case to the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n
The high court accepts less than 1% of appeals \u2013 so why this one? Credit probably goes to Judge Richard Posner in Chicago, one of the nation\u2019s best-known appellate judges, who in 2006 ruled that translations don\u2019t count as interpretations. \u201cRobert Fagles made famous translations into English of the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Aeneid, but no one would refer to him as an English-language \u2018interpreter\u2019 of those works,\u201d averred Judge Posner.<\/p>\n
There was thus a split among appeals courts \u2013 with the San Francisco court, joined by others, taking one interpretation of \u201cinterpretation\u201d and Judge Posner taking another. Such splits can only be resolved by the U.S. Supreme Court.<\/p>\n
According to his Wikipedia page, Mr. Taniguchi was a first-round draft pick by Tokyo\u2019s Yomiuri Giants but hurt his left shoulder and played only seven games in the Japanese major leagues. He also had a brief minor-league career in the U.S. According to Dream Next, a website that tracks former professional Japanese baseball players, Mr. Taniguchi now runs an izakaya, or pub, in his native Osaka.<\/p>\n
Thousands of Americans dream of getting their day at the Supreme Court, and the vast majority are disappointed. Though his unfortunate injury prevented him from fulfilling his promise in professional baseball, Mr. Taniguchi has now made history in another way.<\/p>\n
For more information: https:\/\/blogs.wsj.com\/japanrealtime\/2012\/02\/20\/lost-in-interpretation-japan-citizen-case-goes-to-supreme-court\/?mod=wsj_share_twitter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The U.S. Supreme Court accepts only around 80 cases a year, most of them involving Americans, and it is a rare event to have a Japanese citizen\u2019s dispute come before the court. That is the case this week, however. Kouichi Taniguchi, a former professional baseball player, will have his case heard at the highest court […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n