Definition
A Latin maxim meaning "from inconvenience" or "from hardship." In legal reasoning, *ab inconvenienti* describes an argument that justifies a legal conclusion by pointing to the hardship, absurdity, or disastrous practical consequences that would follow from the opposing interpretation. It is not an independent legal rule but a mode of argument — a way of contending that a court should adopt one reading of the law over another because the alternative leads to unreasonable or unjust results.
The argument runs in a particular direction: if a proposed interpretation would produce inconvenient, oppressive, or absurd consequences, that inconvenience is treated as evidence that the interpretation is legally unsound. Courts historically gave this reasoning weight as a canon of construction, not as a substitute for textual analysis.
Common Confusion
*Ab inconvenienti* is sometimes treated as if it authorizes courts to override clear statutory text whenever the result seems harsh. That is an overstatement. Historically, the argument operated most forcefully where the text was ambiguous and competing interpretations were available. It was a tiebreaker supporting the reasonable construction, not a license to rewrite plain language on grounds of policy.
Researchers should also distinguish this maxim from equitable arguments of hardship, which operate through a different doctrinal channel. An *ab inconvenienti* argument addresses the meaning of a legal rule; equitable hardship arguments address the application of a rule whose meaning is not in dispute.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encounter *ab inconvenienti* most often in older common law cases and treatises, where Latin maxims carried significant rhetorical and doctrinal weight. The phrase appears in judicial opinions as a shorthand for consequentialist statutory or common law interpretation — what modern courts might call avoiding "absurd results." Understanding the Latin phrase is necessary to follow the reasoning of pre-twentieth-century English and American courts without misreading the argument as something more formal than it is.
The term is closely connected to the broader entry on *argumentum ab inconvenienti* in Burrill and other historical dictionaries, where it receives fuller treatment as a specific form of legal argument. Researchers tracing the history of purposivist or consequentialist interpretation should follow that cross-reference, as the maxim's doctrinal application is developed there rather than under this abbreviated form.
In corpus research, the abbreviated form *ab inconvenienti* and the full form *argumentum ab inconvenienti* are used interchangeably in historical sources. Searches limited to one form will miss occurrences of the other.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's (1st and 2nd editions) are consistent and nearly identical: both define the phrase as an argument "founded upon the hardship of the case, and the inconvenience or disastrous consequences to which a different course of reasoning would lead." This framing emphasizes the argumentative function — *ab inconvenienti* is a tool of persuasion and interpretation, not a rule of decision.
Burrill is notably brief, treating this entry as a pointer to *argumentum ab inconvenienti* rather than a self-contained definition. That editorial choice signals that Burrill viewed the abbreviated Latin phrase as insufficient standing alone, and that the doctrinal content lives under the fuller heading. Researchers using Burrill should not treat this entry as complete.
None of the historical dictionaries address how this form of argument relates to modern textualism or purposivism — a gap that matters for researchers tracing the intellectual genealogy of interpretive methodology. The maxim implicitly endorses a purposivist instinct (avoid unreasonable outcomes), which sits in tension with strict textualist approaches that gained prominence in late twentieth-century American jurisprudence.