Are bees fish? California court says yes

When I heard that a California appellate court had ruled that bumblebees were fish (Almond Alliance of California v. Fish and Game Commission, 2022 Cal.App. Lexis 470) (Google Scholar link here), I knew immediately where to turn for cogent and amusing analysis of this seemingly bizarre decision.

And, of course, Mr. Underhill did not disappoint: See, "Court says Bees are Fish," Lowering the Bar, June 3, 2022.

But... fun as it is to pile on those kooky, nutty, crazy California judges, the court's conclusion (bees are fish) turns out to be a rather straightforward application of a statutory definition. "Fish," it turns out, are defined in the applicable statute to mean "a wild fish, mollusk, crustacean, invertebrate, amphibian, or part, spawn, or ovum of any of those animals." So, not only are bees fish, frogs are also fish.

Legislators say the darndest things! (H/T Art Linkletter.)

In the Almond Alliance case, since bumblebees (invetebrates) are "fish" within the meaning of the statute, they were entitled to protection under the applicable statute just same as Charlie Tuna. Holy Mackerel!

Unless and until it crosses a constitutional line, nothing prevents a legislature from making illogical, odd, inconsistent, or even stupid enactments. This is a part of a legislature's traditional prerogative -- not just in California, but in Illinois, and anywhere else where the rule of law is followed... sometimes down strange paths indeed.

And perhaps it's best not to be too hard on the California legislature either, at least in this case.

Thinking about this case today reminded me of an entry in one of my favorite resource books, The Second Book of General Ignorance (subtitled, "Everything You Think You Know Is (Still) Wrong"), by John Lloyd and John Mitchinson (Crown Publishers 2010). The entry is entitled "Can you name a fish?" and the short answer provided is, "Don't even try, there's no such thing."

It seems science doesn't think much of the term "fish" either. "To an evolutionary biologist," Lloyd and Mitchinson write, "fish is not a useful word unless it's on a menu." They quote the Oxford Encyclopedia of Underwater Life as follows:

Incredible as it may sound, there is no such thing as a 'fish.' The concept is merely a convenient umbrella term to describe an aquatic verebrate that is not a mammal, a turtle, or anything else. * * * The relationship between a lamprey and a shark is no closer than that between a salamander and a camel.

So maybe it was not entirely unreasonable for legislators to view "fish" as a catch-all category, with a definition that could be expanded as needed. As Lloyd and Mitchinson observe,

In the sixteenth century seals, whales, crocodiles, and even hippos were called "fish." And, today, cuttlefish, starfish, crayfish, jellyfish, and shellfish (which by any scientific definition, aren't fish at all) still are.

The fact that there may be some discrepancy (or even a yawning gulf) between the common and ordinary understanding of a term and the meaning of a term as defined in a statute (or, for that matter, in a contract, such as an insurance policy) should not, and generally does not, create any problem for a court called upon to review the statute or contract. The could will merely follow the definition set forth in the instrument being construed. Here is an example of this principle from an Illinois insurance case: “[T]erms utilized in the policy are accorded their plain and ordinary meaning (Outboard Marine Corp. v. Liberty Mutual Insurance Co., 154 Ill.2d 90, 108, 180 Ill.Dec. 691, 607 N.E.2d 1204 (1992)) unless specifically defined in the policy, in which case they will be given the meaning as defined in the policy.” Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Ry. Co. v. St. Paul Surplus Lines Ins. Co., 328 Ill.App.3d 711, 714, 767 N.E.2d 827, 829 (1st Dist. 2002).

This Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal cartoon (by Zach Weinersmith) from September 2012 shows how good lawyers might use (or, in this case, create) defined terms to particular advantage: