Opinion ID: 1885403
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 18

Heading: Whether the Board could enter into a joint operations agreement without forming a separate airport authority.

Text: ¶ 58. In its order granting Falco partial summary judgment, the circuit court ruled that Vicksburg could not act under the Airport Authorities Law without first creating a separate corporate authority under either 61-3-5 or 61-3-7 MCA. These statutes are not merely idle provisions, but serve an essential, critical, and indispensable function of protecting the city from lawsuits, tort, and otherwise in the Courts of Louisiana. The court went on to state that § 61-3-67 clearly requires the creation of an authority before any joint operation with a public agency of an adjoining state. While the Board has gone on to create an authority (which became the subject of the second case consolidated here), it appeals this portion of the judgment. ¶ 59. We have yet to interpret our statutes on joint operations of airports. Section 61-3-67 reads in full: For the purposes of sections 61-3-67 to 61-3-75, unless otherwise qualified, the term public agency includes municipality and authority, each as defined in this chapter, any agency of the state government and of the United States, and any municipality, political subdivision and agency of an adjoining state. The term governing body includes the commissioners of an authority, the governing body of a municipality, and the head of an agency of a state or the United States if the public agency is other than an authority or municipality. All powers, privileges, and authority granted by this chapter may be exercised and enjoyed by an authority jointly with any public agency of this state, and jointly with any public agency of any adjoining state or of the United States to the extent that the laws of such other state or of the United States permit such joint exercise of enjoyment. Any agency of the state government, when acting jointly with any authority, may exercise and enjoy all the powers, privileges, and authority conferred by this chapter upon an authority. (emphasis added). This statute addresses the powers to be exercised by an authority, which appears to be what the circuit court had in mind in issuing its judgment. That reading is potentially complicated by the word may, which implies a permissive rather than a mandatory reading: just because powers may be exercised by an authority, that does not necessarily mean that only an authority may exercise those powers. ¶ 60. Of course, we might be placing too much emphasis on the word may, except that a reading of the next statute following § 61-3-67 suggests otherwise. That statute reads: Any two or more public agencies may enter into agreements with each other for joint action pursuant to the provisions of section 61-3-67. Each agreement shall specify its duration, the proportionate interest which each public agency shall have in the property, facilities, and privileges involved in the joint undertaking, the proportion of costs of operation, etc., to be borne by each public agency, and such other terms as are deemed necessary or required by law. The agreement may also provide for amendments and termination; disposal of all or any of the property, facilities, and privileges jointly owned, prior to or at such time as said property, facilities, and privileges, or any part thereof, cease to be used for the purposes provided in this chapter, or upon termination of the agreement; the distribution of the proceeds received upon any disposal, and of any funds or other property jointly owned and undisposed of; the assumption or payment of any indebtedness arising from the joint undertaking which remains unpaid upon the disposal of all assets or upon a termination of the agreement; and such other provisions as may be necessary or convenient. (emphasis added). Public agency in § 61-3-69 means municipality or authority, according to § 61-3-67. So, one municipality can enter into an agreement with another municipality. If only authorities could enter into joint operations agreements, as Falco's reading of § 61-3-67 would have it, then § 61-3-69 would be nonsensical. The plain text of § 61-3-67 states that an authority can in fact enter into a joint operations agreement with another public agency, which means that a municipality can enter into an agreement directly with an authority, without the need for an intermediary. The only harmonious reading of the two statutes is that either an authority or a municipality can enter into a joint operations agreement. ¶ 61. This reading makes additional sense when one notes that § 61-3-71 requires the public agencies to form a joint board. It would be a parody of bureaucratic imbrication for the Legislature to require a municipality to create a board solely in order that that board might create another board, and absent direct statutory language compelling such a reading, we will not construe these otherwise clear statutes as so ordering. See USF & G Co. v. Conservatorship of Melson, 809 So.2d 647, 660 (Miss.2002) (this Court will not construe statutes to impute absurd purpose to Legislature). ¶ 62. On this reading, Vicksburg was mistaken in citing only § 61-3-67 (and not § 61-3-69 as well) when it entered into its joint operations agreement, but that is not reversible error. [7] We affirm where an agency or lower court reaches the right result for the wrong reason. Jackson v. Fly, 215 Miss. 303, 311, 60 So.2d 782, 786 (1952); see Fulton v. Robinson Indus., Inc., 664 So.2d 170, 176 (Miss.1995). ¶ 63. As for the circuit court's anxiety about the city's potential tort liability, the joint board may be meant in part to insulate against such hazards, though we do not address that potential issue today. In any case, as we have already noted, it is not the place of the judiciary to countermand legislative acts because the court regards them as imprudent, unwise, or worse. We do not (thankfully) exercise a super-veto over the municipalities, boards of supervisors, and administrative agencies of this State on the basis of our mere agreement or disagreement with their policies. ¶ 64. Falco expresses supreme indignation over the Board's committing city revenues to an airport located in the territory of another sovereign State, subject to the laws thereof, and partially controlled by the political subdivisions thereof. That indignation is unrelated to the proper disposition of this case. We have boldfaced the language of § 61-3-67 which justifies the Board in forming a joint authority with public agencies of other states; § 61-3-75 provides for joint funding of joint authorities, which obviously would be empty shells without monies from the cooperating public agencies. Falco's complaint is properly lodged with their representatives in the Legislature, not with the courts. ¶ 65. The dissenting opinion detects an underlying tenet ... which is that Miss. Code Ann. §§ 61-3-67 through 61-3-75 presuppose that the land for the airport at issue would be located in Mississippi, not outside of our borders. This underlying tenet was not expressed by the Legislature, which evidently did not take the dire attitude towards cooperation with out-of-state entities that Falco and the dissenting opinion have adopted. Whether the Legislature was prudent in setting no special limits on interstate operations is not for any court to dictate. It is our job to apply the law as it is written, not to rewrite it in view of public policy considerations which we think the Legislature failed to address. Our Constitution provides that if there is a public policy issue to be addressed, it is for the Legislature, not this Court. Farmer v. B & G Food Enters., Inc., 818 So.2d 1154, 1162 (Miss.2002) (McRae, P.J., dissenting); see Kelly v. Miss. Valley Gas Co., 397 So.2d 874, 877 (Miss.1981) (quoting Hamner v. Yazoo Delta Lumber Co., 100 Miss. 349, 417, 56 So. 466, 490 (1911)): The courts have no right to add anything to or take anything from a statute, where the language is plain and unambiguous. To do so would be intrenching upon the power of the legislature. Neither have the courts authority to write into the statute something which the legislature did not itself write therein, nor can they ingraft upon it any exception not done by the lawmaking department of the government. ¶ 66. Similarly, if (as Falco insists) Vicksburg has been awarded the short end of the stick in its dealings with the City of Tallulah and with Madison Parish, that is a matter for the voters to take up with their elected representatives. As we stated in another context, it seems more consonant with respect for our democratic institutions that the people be given a chance to pass judgment on those said-to-be-recalcitrant legislators before we seriously consider the judicial end run. State ex rel. Moore v. Molpus, 578 So.2d 624, 636 (Miss. 1991). ¶ 67. We therefore hold that the circuit court erred in holding that the Board was required to create a municipal or regional airport authority in order to enter into joint operations with public agencies of the State of Louisiana.