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CS Professional · Drafting, Pleadings and Appearances · General Principles of Drafting

A contract between Kaveri Infra Ltd and a vendor says: 'Vendor shall supply cement, steel, bricks and other building materials.' A dispute arises over whether tiles are covered. Applying the ejusdem generis rule of interpretation, how will a court most likely treat 'other building materials'?

Under ejusdem generis, general words after specific ones are confined to the same class as the specific items. So 'other building materials' covers things of the kind of cement, steel and bricks, and whether tiles fit that class is decided on that basis, not as an unlimited catch-all.

  1. AAs covering any item whatsoever, including non-construction goods
  2. BAs limited to items of the same kind as cement, steel and bricks, so structural materials, with tiles being a question of fact on that classCorrect
  3. CAs void for uncertainty, so the whole clause fails
  4. DAs meaning only the three items expressly named

Explanation

Ejusdem generis reads general words following specific words as limited to the same class (genus) as those specific words. 'Other building materials' therefore takes colour from cement, steel and bricks; whether tiles belong to that class is then examined. It neither expands to everything nor collapses to the named items alone.

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