Opinion ID: 1904321
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Interpretation of Section 3271 as of March 2, 1984

Text: As on all questions of statutory construction, [t]he starting point ... must be the language of the statute itself. [4] State v. Vainio, 466 A.2d 471, 474 (Me.1983). The Act (section 3271) provided in March 1984 that any of the following persons was eligible to take the examination for medical licensure in Maine: Any graduate of a medical school in the United States or Canada designated as accredited by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, or of a foreign-chartered medical school that meets the guidelines established for accreditation by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, or any foreign medical school graduate who has been evaluated by the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates and is a recipient of its permanent certificate, or has successfully completed an academic year of supervised clinical training under the direction of a medical school accredited by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education and who has spent at least 12 months in a graduate educational program approved by the Accreditation Council on Graduate Medical Education, the Canadian Medical Association or the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada .... (Emphasis added) Thus, on the date of Dr. Stone's application, the Act (section 3271) provided four alternative methods by which an applicant might satisfy the educational prerequisites for licensure: 1) graduation from a medical school located in the United States or Canada accredited by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education; or 2) graduation from a foreign-chartered medical school that meets the guidelines for accreditation established by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education; or 3) graduation from a foreign medical school, [5] and evaluation by the Educational Commission on Foreign Medical Graduates and receipt of that Commission's permanent certificate; or 4) graduation from a foreign medical school, [6] and completion of an academic year of supervised clinical training under the direction of a medical school accredited by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education. The 1982 amendment to the Act, on which the Board based its decision, added the second provision concerning graduates of foreign-chartered medical schools. But that second provision did nothing to restrict the scope of the third and fourth provisions pertaining to foreign medical school graduates in general. To the contrary, a straightforward reading of the amendment shows that it had the opposite net effect: It opened a new avenue by which graduates of certain foreign medical schools (namely, schools satisfying accreditation standards) would meet the Act's educational prerequisites without the necessity of their individually obtaining an ECFMG certificate or their individually completing additional clinical training. Despite the plain language of the Act, the Board maintains that the legislature intended the 1982 amendment to bar certain graduates of nondomestic medical schools from the practice of medicine in Maine unless their medical schools met accreditation standards. The Board argues that the use of the adjective foreign-chartered to designate an apparently distinct subset of foreign medical schools creates ambiguity in the Act and thus warrants examination of the legislative history to ascertain the purpose of the 1982 amendment. We reject this argument. We cannot depart from the language of the Act because there is no ambiguity in Dr. Stone's status as a foreign medical school graduate. See Perry v. Hartford Accident & Indemnity Co., 481 A.2d 133, 138 (Me.1984). In construing a statute our duty is to give effect to the intent of the Legislature as evidenced by the language of the statute. If the meaning of the language is plain, we must interpret the statute to mean exactly what it says. Concord General Mutual Insurance Co. v. Patrons-Oxford Mutual Insurance Co., 411 A.2d 1017, 1020 (Me.1980). See also Opinion of the Justices, 460 A.2d 1341, 1345 (Me.1982); National Council on Compensation Insurance v. Superintendent of Insurance, 481 A.2d 775, 779 (Me. 1984). Because neither of these terms foreign-chartered and foreign is expressly defined, they must be accorded their plain and common meaning and should be construed according to their natural import. Brousseau v. Maine Employment Security Commission, 470 A.2d 327, 330 (Me.1984); Town of Arundel v. Swain, 374 A.2d 317, 320 (Me.1977). In any everyday lexicon, Dr. Stone is a foreign medical school graduate. Since the words of [the] statute are clear and unambiguous in relation to Dr. Stone's classification as a foreign medical school graduate, they should be strictly construed, and we need not look beyond them to the purpose of the legislation. Concord General Mutual Insurance Co., 411 A.2d at 1020. See also Seven Islands Land Co. v. Maine Land Use Regulation Commission, 450 A.2d 475, 481 n. 9 (Me.1982). The fact that Dr. Stone is also, in any everyday lexicon, a graduate of a foreign-chartered medical school does not at all detract from his entitlement to pursue his licensure in Maine under either category. Because the language of the Act does not evince any intent to depart from the ordinary meaning of any foreign medical school graduate, we can find no principled basis for excluding Dr. Stone from that classification. He therefore is entitled to licensure, provided that he fulfills the other requirements set forth in the Act. [7] Even if the court were to look at extrinsic materials in an attempt to determine legislative intent, the Board would still not prevail on its present appeal. The Statement of Fact that accompanied L.D. 2011, quoted in note 3 above, is a proper... aid in ascertaining the legislative purpose and intent in enacting the 1982 amendment, Franklin Property Trust v. Foresite, Inc., 438 A.2d 218, 223 (Me.1981); and it is the only such aid available to us in the case at bar. Other materials, such as those apparently furnished by the Board to the named sponsors of L.D. 2011 were not reasonably available to the other legislators or relied upon by them and therefore cannot be treated as part of the amendment's legislative history. [8] The Statement of Fact, the Board now argues, provides us with a specialized definition of foreign-chartered medical schools, namely, recently established Caribbean medical schools with recruiting offices in the United States. We should, the Board further contends, interpret section 3271 as amended in 1982 to accomplish what the Statement of Fact said the bill accomplished: This bill provides for accepting these students [of recently established Caribbean medical schools with recruiting offices in the United States] only if their schools meet established guidelines for accreditation. Accepting arguendo that the sponsors of L.D. 2011 indeed did have in mind such an unconventional and limited definition of foreign-chartered medical schools and indeed did want to impose accreditation of the schools themselves as the only way the graduates of those schools could be licensed in Maine, the undeniable fact remains that the sponsors' drafting utterly and patently failed to carry out their assumed intent. Obviously, to carry out that intent, any competent draftsman [9] would have included in L.D. 2011 itself a specialized definition of foreign-chartered medical schools, in order to narrow the definition of that term, which in its ordinary, everyday meaning refers to all medical schools incorporated outside the United States. Also, the draftsman either would have completely deleted the third (and perhaps the fourth) method of satisfying the educational requirement for licensure in Maine or would have excepted from the foreign medical schools whose graduates could qualify by obtaining an ECFMG certificate the foreign-chartered medical schools as specially defined. Whatever L.D. 2011's sponsors had in mind, they used language that expanded rather than narrowed the educational routes to Maine licensure. It was the statutory language, plain on its face, that the legislators voted to enact and the Governor signed, not the Statement of Fact. [T]he intent of the legislature as divined from the statutory language itself controls, Raymond v. State, 467 A.2d 161, 164 (Me.1983), and must override inconsistent extrinsic materials. [10] As the Superior Court concluded, A different meaning cannot be created out of whole cloth from legislative history. If the legislature intends to qualify and limit general terms which have a plain meaning, they must do it by adopting definitions and limiting amendments into the lawnot by policy statements in legislative history. To depart from the controlling text of section 3271 in search of an alternative interpretation would amount to rewriting the law enacted by the legislature. Considerations of common fairness in the administration of licensing and other regulatory systems buttress our reading of the 1982 amendment. Applicants like Dr. Stone, attempting to plan their educational programs to conform to statutory mandates, rely on the plain and ordinary meaning of the medical licensing law. They ought to be able to take the Act at its word because they do not have any practical way of knowing more than what a statute itself says. See R. Dickerson, The Interpretation and Application of Statutes 11-12 (1975) (constitutional assumption of reasonable availability of knowledge of what the law is). Neither facial ambiguity nor facial absurdity forewarned members of the public that they must look elsewhere for the true meaning of the Act. [S]tandards which a statute sets out to guide the determinations of administrative bodies must be sufficiently distinct so that the public may know what conduct is barred [or demanded] and so that the law will be administered according to the legislative will. In re Spring Valley Development, 300 A.2d 736, 751 (Me.1973). The key assumption [is] that the law must provide reasonable and intelligible standards to guide ... future conduct. Shapiro Bros. Shoe Co., Inc. v. Lewiston-Auburn S.P.A., 320 A.2d 247, 253 (Me.1974). Thus, when interpreting statutes, the court strives to giv[e] statutory language that construction which men of `common intelligence would readily ascribe' thereto. Union Mutual Life Insurance Co. v. Emerson, 345 A.2d 504, 507 (Me.1975) (quoting State v. Shaw, 343 A.2d 210, 213 (Me.1975)). To read section 3271 contrary to its plain meaning and thus exclude Dr. Stone from being treated as a foreign medical school graduate would be to deprive the Act of reasonable and intelligent standards to guide ... future conduct. The entry is: Judgment affirmed. All concurring.