Opinion ID: 2632619
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Statutory Violation of RCW 72.02.045(3)

Text: Where statutory language is plain and unambiguous, a court will not construe the statute but will glean the legislative intent from the words of the statute itself, regardless of a contrary interpretation by an administrative agency. See Bravo v. Dolsen Cos., 125 Wash.2d 745, 752, 888 P.2d 147 (1995); Smith v. N. Pac. Ry. Co., 7 Wash.2d 652, 664, 110 P.2d 851 (1941). A statutory term that is left undefined should be given its usual and ordinary meaning and courts may not read into a statute a meaning that is not there. State v. Hahn, 83 Wash.App. 825, 832, 924 P.2d 392 (1996). If the undefined statutory term is not technical, the court may refer to the dictionary to establish the meaning of the word. Heinsma v. City of Vancouver, 144 Wash.2d 556, 564, 29 P.3d 709 (2001). In undertaking this plain language analysis, the court must remain careful to avoid unlikely, absurd or strained results. State v. Stannard, 109 Wash.2d 29, 36, 742 P.2d 1244 (1987). In contrast, an ambiguous statute requires judicial construction. A statute is ambiguous only if susceptible to two or more reasonable interpretations, but a statute is not ambiguous merely because different interpretations are conceivable. State v. Keller, 143 Wash.2d 267, 276, 19 P.3d 1030 (2001). If a statute is subject to more than one reasonable interpretation, the court should construe the statute to effectuate the legislature's intent. Davis v. Dep't of Licensing, 137 Wash.2d 957, 963, 977 P.2d 554 (1999). Only where the legislative intent is not clear from the words of a statute may the court resort to extrinsic aids, such as legislative history. Biggs v. Vail, 119 Wash.2d 129, 134, 830 P.2d 350 (1992). Throughout this litigation, the parties' dispute has focused on the meaning of two undefined terms in RCW 72.02.045(3): transfer and deliver[y]. Although varying interpretations of these terms are conceivable in the metaphysical sense, we conclude that a plain language analysis of each is both necessary and sufficient to dispose of the question presented.
The dictionary succinctly defines transfer as follows: to carry or take from one person or place to another: ... to move or send to a different location. WEBSTER'S THIRD NEW INTERNATIONAL DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 2426-27 (2002). Similarly, Black's Law Dictionary defines transfer as a verb meaning [t]o convey or remove from one place or one person to another. BLACK'S LAW DICTIONARY 1536 (8th ed.2004). The application of these ordinary definitions to the phrase released from the confines of the institution ... on ... transfer requires us to give the terms release and confine[ment] their plain meaning as well. The term release is defined as [t]he action of freeing or the fact of being freed from restraint or confinement. Id. at 1315-16. In turn, confinement is [t]he act of imprisoning or restraining someone; the state of being imprisoned or restrained. Id. at 318. When, as here, the statutory terms are plain and unambiguous we assume the legislature meant exactly what it said and decline to construe the statute otherwise. [3] See Keller, 143 Wash.2d at 276, 19 P.3d 1030. Therefore, as the Court of Appeals correctly concluded, transfer must at least include an inmate's release from the confines of one DOC institution and conveyance to another. Burton, 118 Wash.App. at 312-13, 76 P.3d 271.
The term delivery is defined as [t]he formal act of transferring something ...; the giving or yielding possession or control of something to another. BLACK'S, supra, at 461. Although the law recognizes that delivery may be actual, constructive, or symbolic, the only reasonable definition, as applied to a transferred inmate, is constructive because DOC superintendents are custodians of inmate property and may limit an inmate's actual possession. See RCW 72.02.045(3); WAC 137-36-030. Constructive delivery requires [a]n act that amounts to a transfer of title by operation of law when actual transfer is impractical or impossible. BLACK'S, supra, at 461. The Court of Appeals correctly adopted the constructive delivery definition, though it need not have concluded that the statute was ambiguous to do so. Burton, 118 Wash.App. at 314, 76 P.3d 271. The parties themselves have not contested the use of constructive delivery as the correct definition, but rather they dispute its application. Burton is correct that the Court of Appeals incorrectly assumed that inmates have the option to arrange for a nonincarcerated person to retrieve excess property. See id. DOC Policy 440.000 makes no such allowance explicit, and there was no finding that Burton or any other inmate was allowed to make such arrangements. Moreover, an adoption of the Court of Appeals reasoning would fail to take into account instances where inmates are both indigent and have no available nonincarcerated persons to take possession. Such inmates would necessarily lose possession and control over the disposition of their property  a result that is incongruent with the mandate in RCW 72.02.045(3) that a transferred inmate's property shall be delivered to them. Rather, we conclude that constructive delivery requires significantly more. For purposes of RCW 72.02.045(3), the phrase all ... valuable personal property in the possession of the superintendent belonging to such convicted persons shall be delivered to them cannot be artificially limited. Nothing in the statute indicates that only some of an inmates property shall be delivered, nor does it state that the property shall be delivered at such convicted persons expense. Yet this is clearly the effect of DOC Policy 440.000. Accordingly, we must conclude that the statute means exactly what it says; that is, whenever an inmate is moved between DOC institutions, DOC is responsible for ensuring that the property owned by convicted persons and held in the custody of DOC superintendents is physically relocated from the transferor institution to the transferee institution. This is the act ... amount[ing] to a transfer of title required to satisfy constructive delivery in this particular context. See BLACK'S, supra, at 461. We recognize that the question of whether the transferee superintendent ultimately gives an inmate actual possession of such property is a separate issue, dependant upon circumstances not addressed in RCW 72.02.045(3). However, DOC may not impose a requirement that inmates must choose between having to pay shipping costs or lose their ownership. [4]