Omission of one comma costs dairy company $5 million

An absent “Oxford comma” will cost a Maine dairy company $5 million.
The suit, brought against Oakhurst Dairy by the company’s drivers in 2014, sought $10 million in a dispute about overtime payment.
A federal appeals court decided to keep the drivers’ lawsuit, concerning an exemption from Maine’s overtime law, alive last year.
Court documents filed Thursday show that the company and the drivers settled for $5 million.
“For want of a comma, we have this case,” U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit Judge David Barron said in March, 2017.
The sentence at the heart of the dairy drivers’ case referred to Maine’s overtime law and whom it doesn’t apply to: “The canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing,
The disagreement stemmed from the lack of a comma after the word “shipment.”
The use of the Oxford comma — also called a serial comma — delineates the final item on a list. For example: “Milk, cheese, and yogurt.”
Proponents of the punctuation argue it helps to differentiate subjects, while opponents say it’s cumbersome.
Different style guides have different rules about the Oxford comma, which gets its name because it was preferred by Oxford University Press editors.
In 2017, Judge David Barron reasoned that the law’s punctuation made it unclear if “packing for shipping or distribution” is one activity or if “packing for shipping” is separate from “distribution.”
The five drivers who led the lawsuit will receive $50,000 each from the settlement fund, according to the Portland Press Herald.
The other 127 drivers who are eligible to file a claim will be paid a minimum of $100 or the amount of overtime they were owed based on their work from May 2008 to August 2012, the Press Herald reported
Mr Meade added the solar eclipse began in Oregon, the 33rd State, and ended in South Carolina, which is in the 33rd parallel – a circle of latitude which is 33 degrees north of the equatorial plane.
Mr Meade said: “The last eclipse of this nature was 99 years ago (33 x 3)”.
Three is significant in Biblical terms as it represents the Holy Trinity. Thirty three is how old Jesus was he died.
He goes on to say the “crazy people of the United Nations” declared on December 21 that Jerusalem is not the capital of Israel.
This was followed 42 days later by the blood red blue supermoon.
Following this, Mr Meade says “Ron Reese, a Bible scholar of many years … says the Tribulation begins on or around April 11, 2018.”
Mr Meade says the Antichrist will step out of the shadows following this date and “I think I know who it is but there is no way I’m releasing that information.”
He said North Korea will commence World War III later this year and that the fabled Planet X – a mythical planet that is allegedly heading towards our solar system and will knock Earth off its axis and cause widespread destruction – will appear.
Meade said: “Halfway through the Tribulation the Antichrist declares himself in the rebuilt Hebrew temple in Jerusalem. There’s major trouble from that point forward. Everything escalates a hundredfold.
“The Antichrist’s time is brief (a full 3.5 years) but he wrecks havoc on the earth in that time. He creates nuclear wars and as a result there is famine and pestilence.”

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