Template:Without limitation and ejusdem generis

Without limitation and ejusdem generis

Recently spotted: specifically carving out ejusdem generis as an articulation of the without limitation trope:

“including (without limitation or application of the ejusdem generis rule) data (including risk and historic, know-how, formulae, processes, designs, personnel and operational information, photographs, drawings, specifications, computer code, persona data, portfolio data and any other information or data relating to the business, staff, operations or trading strategies of the company.”

This, of all places, in a confidentiality agreement. This is legal eaglery taken to an extraordinary, self-contradictory lengths. This is the legal eagle as farmer, cack-handedly counting her sheep. For what is the purpose of a laundry list of specifics in the first place, if not to somehow craft, contextualise or otherwise put some meaningful boundaries on a general expression which might otherwise have impossibly wide application? If you just want to capture all information, just say “all information”, and don’t trouble your reader with a laundry list which is patently redundant or the ejusdem generis carve-out.