Opinion ID: 1926398
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: temporary ordinances

Text: [¶ 6] Home Builders contends that, although the Town's Growth Management Ordinance is permanent, section 4301(11) applies to it because the definition of moratorium in section 4301(11) is not limited to ordinances that are temporary. Rather, section 4301(11) defines a moratorium as a land use ordinance or other regulation approved by a municipal legislative body which temporarily defers development by withholding any authorization or approval necessary for development. 30-A M.R.S.A. § 4301(11) (1996) (emphasis added). A comparable moratorium statute governing the Land Use Regulation Commission, on the other hand, defines moratorium as  a temporary land use regulation or ordinance approved by the commission or a municipal legislative body which prevents development or subdivision by withholding authorization or approval necessary for development. 12 M.R.S.A. § 682(8-A) (1994) (emphasis added). The Town contends that the word temporary in section 4301(11) is a misplaced modifier, pointing out that the word defers, directly following the word temporary, itself means to postpone temporarily. Thus, the Town argues, the word is superfluous unless it is understood to describe the duration of the ordinance itself, not some possible impact of the ordinance. [¶ 7] In Struck v. Hackett, 668 A.2d 411 (Me.1995), we noted that it is well established that `[n]othing in a statute may be treated as surplusage if a reasonable construction supplying meaning and force is otherwise possible.' Id. at 417 (quoting Labbe v. Nissen Corp., 404 A.2d 564, 567 (Me.1979)), quoted in Handyman Equip. Rental Co., Inc. v. City of Portland, 1999 ME 20, ¶ 9, 724 A.2d 605, 607-08. [¶ 8] Surplusage occurs when a construction of one provision of a statute renders another provision unnecessary or without meaning or force. See, e.g., Opinion of the Justices, 460 A.2d 1341, 1346 (Me.1982) (refusing to construe An Act to Adjust Annually Individual Income Tax Laws to Eliminate Inflation-induced Increases in Individual Income Taxes in such a way that section 5 of the Act would be superfluous). Other cases involve situations in which a phrase in a statute, arguably with independent meaning in the context of its location in the statute, would be given no effect under a particular construction. See, e.g., Handyman Equip. Rental, 1999 ME 20, ¶ 8, 724 A.2d at 607 (discussing a party's construction of a statute that would render meaningless the phrase liable to be taxed in the context of a statute reading, in part, property liable to be taxed in this State) (emphasis added); National Newark & Essex Bank v. Hart, 309 A.2d 512, 520 (Me.1973) (noting that one party's construction would render the entire last sentence of a statutory provision unnecessary). [¶ 9] In cases in which a single word or punctuation has been the subject of an appeal, we have been reluctant to rearrange statutory language to give the statute a substantively different meaning than that which would be reasonably understood from the language as written. See, e.g., Labbe, 404 A.2d at 567-68 (offering an edited version of a statutory provision only as an illustration of the Court's construction of the statute based on a reasonable interpretation of the actual text). Instead, we have deferred to the plain meaning of the statute. See, e.g., Struck, 668 A.2d at 417 (finding the appellant's construction of 30-A M.R.S.A. §§ 381 and 501 would render the term probationary in section 381 superfluous). [¶ 10] Here, the Town contends that we should construe section 4301(11) by changing the word temporarily, currently placed immediately before and modifying the verb defers, to temporary, placing it before the noun phrase land use ordinance. Although the Town notes correctly that the word defer already means temporarily, what the Town suggests goes beyond a reasonable construction. We are not persuaded that the word temporarily should be applied to modify a wholly separate term in the statute. The plain language of section 4301(11) includes within its definition of moratorium any ordinance that temporarily defers development, whether the ordinance itself is a temporary or a permanent ordinance. Such a plain language reading is reasonable and leaves no words without meaning. Accordingly, section 4301(11) is not inapplicable merely because the ordinance in dispute is permanent.