Opinion ID: 2514012
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: the meaning of best interest of the district

Text: Idaho Code section 40-1805 provides that the Commissioners must make a finding that dissolution would be to the best interest of the district. The Commissioners determined that `best interest of the District' as used in I.C. § 40-1805 is used to mean the geographical area and the individual members of the population living within the area and not the governmental entity. SIHD maintains that this conclusion is erroneous, arguing that the term best interest of the district refers to the corporate entity and body politic, not the voters within the district or the district as a geographic area. The Court has traditionally used a two-step approach to legislative interpretation. We interpret statutes according to the plain, express meaning of a provision in question, and we will resort to judicial construction only if the provision is ambiguous, incomplete, absurd, or arguably in conflict with other laws. Peasley Transfer & Storage Co. v. Smith, 132 Idaho 732, 742, 979 P.2d 605, 615 (1999). Beginning with the relevant text of the statute, district is used four times: [I]f the commissioners determine that the district ought to be dissolved and that the dissolution would be to the best interest of the district, it shall enter an order directing that the question of dissolution of the district be submitted to the qualified electors of the district. ... I.C. § 40-1805 (emphasis added). The first, third and fourth uses of district refer to the highway district as a corporate, public body and not a geographic entity. The question is whether consistency requires that the same meaning be applied to use of the term district in the context of deciding if it is in the best interest of the district to be dissolved. SIHD argues that the statute must be interpreted to have internal consistency, so the term district has the same meaning in its multiple uses. In I.C. §§ 40-1813 and 40-1815 of Chapter 18, the legislature refers to the geographical center of the district and the territory of the district. Also, in I.C. § 40-1605, the legislature determined that detachment from a highway district must be to the best interests of the territory and of the highway district. Reading the provisions of Chapter 18 together as a uniform body, district, therefore, is mostly used to denote an organization instead of something more expansive, supporting SIHD's argument. See Davaz v. Priest River Glass Co., Inc., 125 Idaho 333, 336, 870 P.2d 1292, 1295 (1994) ([t]he court must construe a statute as a whole and consider all sections of applicable statutes together to determine the intent of the legislature. (citations omitted)); Bunt v. City of Garden City, 118 Idaho 427, 797 P.2d 135 (1990) (holding that ordinary words will be given their ordinary meaning when construing a statute or ordinance, unless a contrary purpose is clearly indicated). Regardless, a common sense reading of I.C. § 40-1805 indicates that something more than the corporate entity is meant when best interest of the district is considered. See Walker v. Hensley Trucking, 107 Idaho 572, 691 P.2d 1187 (1984) (holding that the rational and obvious meaning of a statute is always preferred to any curious, narrow, hidden sense); Knight v. Employment Sec. Agency, 88 Idaho 262, 398 P.2d 643 (1965) (holding that in construing a statute, not only must the literal wording of the statute be examined, but also account must be taken of all other matters such as context, object in view, evils to be remedied, history of the times and of legislation upon the same subject, public policy, contemporaneous construction, and the like). It would seem that defining district as meaning the SIHD itself would cut short attempts at dissolutionseldom if ever, would it be in the interest of the corporate entity to dissolve. SIHD counters that dissolution could be ordered if the highway district was financially unstable or unable to operate. Those conditions do not exist in this case. Such a narrow reading of best interest of the district would foreclose consideration of other public policy values, such as the desire for greater efficiency and savings through smaller road management units or the desire to shift tax burdens more equitably. It would ignore the interests of the persons the district is intended to serve. It is almost certain that the legislature did not intend such an interpretation. The Commissioners did not err in determining that best interest of the district extends to consideration of geographical area and the interests of the people living in the district.