Punctuation is important -- any grammar school Language Arts or English teacher will certainly insist on that. And I guess that statement is mostly true, but to a point; it's rather unlikely that my double-dash in the previous sentence is the correct way to punctuate that sentence, but I did it anyway, and my guess is that you didn't seem to mind. So, perhaps, punctuation is important, but it is also flexible.

Except when writing laws. In that case, a comma -- or lack thereof -- can cause a lot of problems.

Just ask Oakhurst Dairy, a Portland, Maine-based dairy company that makes milk and other similar products. And like any other company of that type, it doesn't make sense for the milk they make to just sit on their factory floors; Oakhurst Dairy has to ship all of that stuff to stores around the country. That requires truck drivers, and truck drivers need to be paid. Nothing controversial about that. At least, not until 2014.

That year, a group of truck drivers realized they hadn't been paid overtime. Maine's employment laws at the time were similar to those of most other states, and some hourly workers were entitled to "time-and-a-half" for all hours worked after 40 in any given week. In other words, if an employee making $10 an hour worked 42 hours, he'd get paid $400 for the first 10 hours; then, he'd get paid three hours' worth of salary for the additional two hours worked, or $30. But like other states' laws, Maine's had many exceptions. Not everyone was entitled to time-and-a-half, and truck drivers transporting milk were probably intended to be one of those exceptions. As reported by NPR, the law stated that work performed in the furtherance of 

[t]he canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for shipment or distribution of:

(1) Agricultural produce;

(2) Meat and fish products; and

(3) Perishable foods

The canning; processing; preserving; freezing; drying; marketing; storing; packing for shipment; or distributing of:

(1) Agricultural produce;

(2) Meat and fish products; and

(3) Perishable foods.