[soneil]

I think this is the huge difference between US and English law. While they're both rooted in the same corpus ('common law'), they're exercised very differently.

Where US law can be seen to lean heavily towards the letter of the law, English law leans heavily towards Intent - both the spirit of the law, and the intent of the involved partied.

This is also where a great deal of friction against EU lawmakers is created. The EU leans towards "legislate everything", whereas we trust our judges to properly apply terms such as "unfair", "good faith", etc.

I think this is commonly missed when reading into each others' laws - there exists not only different laws and different legal systems, but also differing legal cultures. And that last one is much harder to read into.