“Pending case” does seem to have a specific legal meaning. I am not a lawyer and wouldn’t know whether there is an additional colloquial meaning (though when asked in those terms, Claude Sonnet 4 agrees that there is). Therefore I disagree that it was “sufficiently clear”—I would say it was below a sufficient standard of clarity.[1] I don’t think the reader can be expected to infer that a legal term was being used differently from the fact it was a disclosed to be a newly-formed volunteer team. I do think readers would have expected an organisation’s formal statement to be using the legal, more formal, meaning, and indeed I think many non-lawyer readers of this forum would not be aware that there is any other meaning.
Thanks Hugh. For the purpose of clarity, we are editing the words “pending cases” on the prior post and noting that it has been edited. The original ambiguity was not deliberate, for what it is worth. We meant it the way that your Claude session explains it, but we understand that there is a specific legal meaning.
“Pending case” does seem to have a specific legal meaning. I am not a lawyer and wouldn’t know whether there is an additional colloquial meaning (though when asked in those terms, Claude Sonnet 4 agrees that there is). Therefore I disagree that it was “sufficiently clear”—I would say it was below a sufficient standard of clarity.[1] I don’t think the reader can be expected to infer that a legal term was being used differently from the fact it was a disclosed to be a newly-formed volunteer team. I do think readers would have expected an organisation’s formal statement to be using the legal, more formal, meaning, and indeed I think many non-lawyer readers of this forum would not be aware that there is any other meaning.
(Though I don’t get the impression this was deliberate, whereas I get the sense Vetted Causes does.)
Thanks Hugh. For the purpose of clarity, we are editing the words “pending cases” on the prior post and noting that it has been edited. The original ambiguity was not deliberate, for what it is worth. We meant it the way that your Claude session explains it, but we understand that there is a specific legal meaning.