Comment by thaumasiotes

> Courts start by looking at the "plain meaning" of the words used, but where that doesn't yield an unambiguous answer they will often look at the overall scheme or purpose of the legislation to try and figure out which interpretation is most consistent with that.

There is also the concept of a "canon of construction", which exists specifically to handle these kinds of reoccurring grammatical issues. I'm surprised there isn't one for dangling modifiers.