Barely arguable

There is a Judge, now retired, who I will not embarrass by naming. I had a number of encounters with him in the children field and elsewhere. Most notable, however, was an appearance in the county court for a tenant in a possession action who assured me when we met in conference that I was going to win for him. I had reservations; but put forward an argument which fell into the category of arguable: possibly only barely: My argument ran thus. Because the termination clause in the tenancy agreement said something like “The landlord must give seven days notice and the tenant must give seven days to terminate”, this should be construed contra proferentem given the draconian nature of the remedy sought, and meant that both sides had to give notice to each other in order effectively to terminate the tenancy. To my astonishment, the learned Judge bought the argument (he had a reputation for being a sucker for the oppressed even though in this case I was far from certain that it was the tenant who was being oppressed); and to my even greater astonishment the landlord did not seek to appeal.