Because the document drafter had inserted a determiner in front of later items in a series, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled<\/a> that the provision was ambiguous, reversing the grant of summary judgment and remanding for further proceedings.<\/p>\n Grammarly defines a determiner as a word that comes before a noun and specifies something about the noun\u2019s quantity, definiteness, or ownership. A determiner can be an article or a limiting adjective.<\/p>\n Those tiny words \u201cthe,\u201d \u201ca,\u201d and \u201can\u201d are articles. They come in two flavors. \u201cThe\u201d is a definite article; it refers to a unique thing. \u201cA\u201d or \u201can\u201d could be any of the things being referenced; those articles are indefinite. The determiner at issue in Paloma Resources v. Axis Insurance Company<\/a> was \u201cthe.\u201d<\/p>\n Limiting adjectives come in several varieties and some words can serve two functions:<\/p>\n Determiner adjectives are different from descriptive adjectives. Determiners come before other types of adjectives.<\/a><\/p>\n Paloma Resources defended and settled a suit alleging the theft of confidential information to unfairly compete. Axis, Paloma\u2019s commercial insurance carrier, denied coverage for the cost of defense and for the settlement based on an intellectual property exclusion:<\/p>\n The Insurer shall not be liable \u2026 for Loss on account of any Claim \u2026 based upon, arising out of, directly or indirectly resulting from, in consequence of, or in any way involving any actual or alleged infringement of copyright, patent, trademark, trade name, trade dress, or service mark or the misappropriation of ideas or trade secrets, or the unauthorized disclosure of or access to confidential information \u2026<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Paloma argued that the determiner \u201cthe\u201d before \u201cmisappropriation of ideas\u201d separated the following language from the description \u201cactual or alleged.\u201d\u00a0 They claimed that \u201cactual or alleged\u201d only applied to infringement actions per the series-qualifier canon.<\/p>\n The series-qualifier canon<\/a> says that adjectives only modify a series of nouns when they appear without any intervening modifiers, such as \u201cunreasonable search and seizure.\u201d Inserting a determiner breaks the series, and those adjectives do not modify the later nouns.<\/p>\n Paloma asked the court to consider the language as if it had been written with bullet points like this:<\/p>\n Intellectual Property: based upon, arising out of, directly or indirectly resulting from, in consequence of, or in any way involving<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n![\"what](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.attorneyatwork.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/what-is-a-determiner_.jpg?resize=770%2C495&ssl=1\" "\\"\\"")
Table of contents<\/h2>\n
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What the Heck is a Determiner?<\/h2>\n
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Does \u201cThe\u201d Change The Meaning?<\/h2>\n
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