Opinion ID: 1544739
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: May: Permissive or Mandatory?

Text: As regards the first issue, we believe it was the intent of the legislature to require a complaining party to submit their grievances to the state labor relations board before any judicial remedy could be invoked. Thus, when a breakdown in communication occurs in negotiations between teachers and school committees, the legislature intended, in our opinion, to vest initial jurisdiction of the controversy in the board. The association argues the use of the word may in the section under examination is demonstrative evidence that the legislature intended to permit a party to elect between filing a complaint with either the courts or the labor relations board. We acknowledge the cardinal rule of construction advanced by the association that in construing statutes a court will attribute to words their common, ordinary and natural meaning. Mount Pleasant Cab Co. v. Rhode Island Unemployment Compensation Board, 73 R.I. 7, 53 A.2d 485. Nevertheless, we are also cognizant of another rule of equal dignity in the canons of construction which provides that a court should construe words of a statute according to their plain meaning unless such interpretation would defeat the discovered intendment of the legislature. Irish v. Collins, 82 R.I. 348, 107 A.2d 455; State v. Nadeau, 81 R.I. 505, 105 A.2d 194. Moreover, a court should not allow itself to be enslaved to the literal meaning of words and on occasion, albeit with due caution, must eschew the literal and ordinary meaning of words in order to better fulfill the evident purpose of the legislation sought to be construed. O'Brien v. Waterman, 91 R.I. 374, 163 A.2d 31; 82 C.J.S., Statutes, § 329, p. 651. The present appeal, we feel, is to be included within the rule of the Irish and O'Brien cases. We readily concur in the association's observation that the verb may is connotative of permissiveness, but we recognize occasions when this court has attributed to it a different meaning in order to fulfill better the ascertained intent of the legislature. Such was the situation in Carlson v. McLyman, 77 R.I. 177, 182, 74 A.2d 853, 855, where this court said:    We concede that the ordinary meaning of the word `may' is permissive and not compulsive; yet whether it should be given the latter meaning and construed as `shall' in a given case depends on the intent of the legislature as ascertained from the language, the nature, and the object of the statute. See also Nolan v. Representative Council, 73 R.I. 498, 57 A.2d 730. As in the Carlson and Nolan cases, we feel the present case is one requiring a purposeful interpretation of the word may. Our efforts to ascertain the intent which prompted the legislature to enact the teachers arbitration bill were greatly aided by the published report of the findings and suggestions of the special study commission which we referred to earlier. We have taken judicial notice of this manuscript. 29 Am.Jur.2d, Evidence, § 28, p. 65. In our opinion the report, which sheds considerable light on the section under examination, strongly reenforces and corroborates our treatment of the verb may as a mandatory and not as a permissive directive of the legislature. In that portion of the report devoted to listing recommendations, we find the following comment of the commission appearing on page 7: Once an organization representing the teachers has been certified, the school board should be compelled to bargain or negotiate in good faith with such organization. Failure to bargain or negotiate in good faith could be the subject matter of a complaint against either the teachers' organization or the school board and such complaint should be handled in the same fashion as unfair labor practices are presently handled under the State Labor Relations Act. The above passage seems to us to represent cogent evidence that the legislature intended that if either a school committee or a teachers association fails to negotiate in good faith, the aggrieved group must commence proceedings before the state labor relations board prior to turning to the courts for assistance.