Opinion ID: 1657246
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Analysis of the Purported 1940 Repeal

Text: The trial court held that Code of 1940, Title 13, § 199, repealed the provision carried over from § 421, and accordingly, that any subsequent codification of the provision from § 421, e.g., § 17-2-8, was void. The trial court suggested that because the literal language of the provision from § 421 purported to apply to all counties, it was in direct conflict with § 199, which, the parties agree, applied only to provide for an elected deputy circuit clerk for the Bessemer Division. However, to perceive a conflict between the applicability of § 199, to the extent that it provides, according to the parties, only for an elected deputy clerk for the Bessemer Division, and the all counties language from § 421, is to wrongly assume that the provision from § 421 is properly construed literally. As we have suggested, whatever its literal language, the provision from § 421 is properly construed consistent with the legislative intent that it be a local law applicable to the Bessemer Division. It is long-established and familiar law that legislative intent, the polestar for interpreting a statute, determines the meaning of a statute. See, e.g., Sunflower Lumber Co. v. Turner Supply Co., 158 Ala. 191, 48 So. 510 (1909) (indicating that in interpreting a statute, the intention of the legislature must be ascertained and must govern); Ex parte Jordan, 592 So.2d 579, 581 (Ala.1992) (stating that it is familiar law in the interpretation of statutes that the intent of the legislature is the polestar by which this Court must be guided). As we have indicated, the proper construction of § 421, the defining intent that must guide us, is that § 421 was a codification of a local law applicable only to the Bessemer Division. Thus, if the purported source of the conflict, the all counties language of § 421, 1923 Code, cannot properly be construed to have a statewide applicability, but is properly construed as applicable only to Jefferson County's Bessemer Division, and if Code of 1940, Title 13, § 199, as the parties agree, has an identical applicability, then there is no conflict as to applicability. If both statutes apply only to provide for an elected deputy circuit clerk for the Bessemer Division, then those two provisions may be redundant in pertinent part, [14] but they are hardly irreconcilable or directly repugnant. Assuming, as the parties agree, that Code of 1940, Title 13, § 199, was a local law applicable only to provide the Bessemer Division with an elected deputy circuit clerk, and holding, as we do, that the provision from § 421, recodified in the 1940 Code, and recodified today at § 17-2-8, is applicable only to provide the Bessemer Division with an elected deputy circuit clerk, we must conclude that the trial court wrongly reasoned that the two provisions were irreconcilable as to applicability. We conclude, therefore, that the trial court erred in holding, on that basis, that Title 13, § 199, Code of 1940, repealed the provision carried over into the Code of 1940 from § 421, 1923 Code. However, that holding was harmless error. Because the statutory provision under which the defendants seek office, a statute now appearing as § 17-2-8, Ala.Code 1975, must be construed as applying only to the Bessemer Division, and because the defendants seek election as deputy clerks in other counties, we must conclude that the defendants seek nonexistent offices. It is undisputed that Ala.Code 1975, § 12-17-93, gives the circuit clerks authority to appoint deputy circuit clerks, except where the law otherwise provides for the election of a deputy circuit clerk. [15] If § 17-2-8 does not provide for the election of deputy circuit clerks to the positions these defendants seek, then the defendants' efforts to fill these offices through the electoral process usurps the authority of the circuit clerks. Therefore, we conclude that the circuit clerks were entitled to a judgment as a matter of law; their summary judgment must be affirmed. AFFIRMED. MADDOX, SHORES, HOUSTON, and INGRAM, JJ., concur. COOK and BUTTS, JJ., dissent.