7.5.3 STATUTES WITH SIMILAR LANGUAGE
Another frequently used canon of statutory construction is the “in pari materia” canon, known less frequently as the “pari passu” canon. You will see courts use the in pari materia canon in two ways.
As the Illinois Supreme Court has noted, “[u]nder the doctrine of in pari materia, two statutes dealing with the same subject will be considered with reference to each other, so that they may be given harmonious effect.... This doctrine is also applicable to different sections of the same statute, and is consonant with one of our fundamental rules of statutory construction—to view all of the provisions of a statute as a whole.”31 Likewise, the Minnesota Supreme Court has stated that the in pari materia or “related statutes” canon allows “two statutes with common purposes and subject matter to be construed together to determine the meaning of ambiguous statutory language.... The rationale for the canon is that related statutes, although separate, should be considered as one systematic body of law.”32 Federal courts also use the in pari materia canon on a regular basis.33When researching in pari materia arguments, look for useful tests that courts in your jurisdiction apply to justify reading two statutes — or two parts of the same statute — harmoniously. Frequently, courts will use the canon when interpreting provisions that have the same focus or the same purpose, or that govern the same body of law. In 2017, for example, the Minnesota Supreme Court interpreted the word “taking” in a car theft statute by consulting a simple robbery statute, noting that because “theft and simple robbery are effectively two degrees of the same crime, they share the necessary common purpose and subject matter for application of the in pari materia canon.”34
Thus, one avenue for a statutory interpretation argument is to look for similar language in the same statute (an easier argument) or a different statute (a more difficult argument). If you are arguing that two different statutes are to be interpreted harmoniously, you must support that argument by identifying the ways in which the two statutes are not just similar, but are similar in a legally significant way. In 2018, for example a Michigan Court of Appeals refused to read two statutes in pari materia, even though both used the term Guardian ad Litem, because, it found, one of the statutes had the purpose of providing for the well-being of children, while the other had the purpose of limiting governmental tort liability.35