The letter of the law against the spirit of the law is an idiomatic antithesis. Obeying the letter of the law but not the spirit obeys the literal interpretation of the words (the “letter”) of the law, but not necessarily the intention of those who wrote the law. Conversely, if one obeys the spirit of the law but not the letter, one does what the authors of the law intended, although one does not necessarily adhere to the literal formulation. – wikipedia A sneaky and devious lawyer is a pettifogger. If your neighbor hires an unscrupulous charlatan to sue you, you could call his lawyer a Pettifogger. This is usually used when declaring legal cases where, although the accused is generally considered guilty, he is dismissed on the basis of the wording of a point of law or minor procedure. It is also used in tax proceedings when an otherwise illegal tax evasion/evasion technique is used, which is actually allowed due to the wording of the tax code. You don`t often hear the word Pettifogger these days, as the word is quite archaic, but you might find it in an old book. A bad lawyer or pettifogger used questionable means to get clients and win cases. The mid-16th century word itself combined petty – “small”, from the French petit – with the obsolete word fogger, “devious merchant”, which probably came from a wealthy 15th century Bavarian merchant family, the Fuggerns. Like @Lawrence`s response, the term formality refers to the legal process and, in particular, when the letter of the law is followed, but not the spirit. Typically, this is due to exploitation of a vulnerability. One possibility is duplicity, from Latin for “double.” He grasps the hypocritical nature of the offence, that is, the person made a deal, but used a loophole to bypass the ghost while obeying the letter.
Spirit vs letter is also a good description, but not a single word. 1971 Mr. Hastings Jesuit Child i. i. 14 people call a Jesuit man only when they are beaten in an argument. Malicious compliance is the behavior of intentionally causing harm by strictly following orders from a superior, knowing that compliance with orders will not have the desired result. The term usually implies obeying an order in a way that ignores the intent of the command but follows its letter. It is usually done to hurt or harm a supervisor while maintaining a sense of legitimacy.
Here are the three examples among the eleven of the OED, which, in my opinion, are best suited to the question of surgery: 1817 S. T. Coleridge Biographia Literaria II. xxiii. 288 The humble cunning and Jesuit cunning with which she deceives her husband. Another is that of apologies. It comes from the Latin subterfugere, which means “to escape secretly”. The person tries to avoid the consequences by secretly ignoring his promise.
Oxford Dictionaries Online ambiguously defines it as “Use ambiguous language to hide the truth or avoid committing.” Any argument based on subtle semantic contortion could be called sophistry. 1 A question of law or a small detail of a set of rules as opposed to the object or purpose of the rules. en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/technicality you`re asking for a term to describe the situation where someone does exactly what you asked for, but still managed to avoid what you wanted. 1974 Daily Tel. 17 December 12 An argument of such Jesuit subtlety that one might think it could not impress anyone of common sense or moderate reason. The friend`s response in the OP example can be described as a pedantic argument. It attempts to focus on the smallest semantic arguments while ignoring the clear implication that the original obligation – not to talk to anyone – would include text messages and other forms of communication. While this definition has the workplace in mind, I think the term itself is broad enough to apply to your example as well.