Opinion ID: 2167051
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: kentucky constitution.

Text: Section 51 of the Constitution of Kentucky provides: No law enacted by the General Assembly shall relate to more than one subject, and that shall be expressed in the title . . . . The UCSPA is entitled, AN ACT relating to insurance, [2] (not, e.g., AN ACT relating to persons). If the statute related to both insurance and to persons who are not insured, it would violate Section 51 and would be unconstitutional. E.g., McGuffey v. Hall, Ky., 557 S.W.2d 401, 406-07 (1977) (statute entitled AN ACT relating to health care malpractice insurance and claims could not constitutionally contain a provision pertaining to medical peer review boards); Thompson v. Commonwealth, 159 Ky. 8, 166 S.W. 623 (1914) (statute entitled An Act to appropriate money for the benefit of the Houses of Reform, to provide funds to pay the existing deficit and to make improvements at the Houses of Reform could not constitutionally contain provisions pertaining to inmates housed in the Houses of Reform). It is a well established principle of constitutional law and statutory construction that if a statute is reasonably susceptible to two constructions, one of which renders it unconstitutional, the court must adopt the construction which sustains the constitutionality of the statute. American Trucking Ass'n v. Commonwealth, Transp. Cabinet, Ky., 676 S.W.2d 785, 789-90 (1984); see also Commonwealth v. Halsell, Ky., 934 S.W.2d 552, 554-55 (1996). Following this principle, we conclude that AN ACT relating to insurance pertains to insurance and not to persons or entities who are not insured.