Opinion ID: 1533301
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: 21 Years Old or Younger

Text: Section 3-904(e)(1) had not been construed in any reported opinion until the Court of Special Appeals decision in this case. [7] We proceed, therefore, to interpret the phrase 21 years old or younger without the benefit of much Maryland case law. Like the Court of Special Appeals, we note that or serves to establish a contrasting or opposing relationship. Keane v. Carolina Freight Carriers, 70 Md. App. at 302, 520 A.2d at 1144. Since people cannot be both 21 years old and younger at the same time, neither term is surplusage but rather they are descriptive alternatives representing two groups  the set of all people 21 years old and the set of all people younger. There is no issue concerning the people to be included in the younger group  those who are under the age of 21 years. Instead, what we need to examine is the set of people 21 years old and determine who is in that group. A. Does the set include only people who have not yet reached their twenty-first birthday? B. Does it include only people who have reached the day or moment of their twenty-first birthday? Or, C. Does it include those people who have passed their twenty-first birthday but have not yet reached their twenty-second birthday?
This set of people should be considered younger and thus not in the 21 years old set. It was argued, though, that under the common law one attains a given age at the first moment of the day preceding the anniversary of birth. 86 C.J.S. Time, § 8 (1954). So we could separate those not yet reaching the twenty-first birthday into two subgroups  the group before the eve of the birthday, thus in the younger set, and the group having reached the first moment of the eve, but not yet having reached the twenty-first birthday. Therefore, under the common law rule, this set of people 21 years old would include only a 24 hour time span of people on the eve of their twenty-first birthday.
This set of 21 year olds would include at most a 24 hour time span of people, if one allowed the entire day of the birthday to be included. But, it might only include a moment's span of people if once the anniversary of the time of their birth was passed, they were no longer 21 years old but rather over 21 years old. For example, Gregory Keane was born at 3:32 a.m. on 11 March. In the first interpretation, at most he would have had the whole day of 11 March to be considered 21 years old. In the second interpretation, he would have been considered 21 years old only at the moment of 3:32 a.m. on 11 March. After that he would be considered over 21 years old. Could the legislature reasonably have intended the set of people 21 years old  to include only a day's group of people, or only a moment's group?
This set of people encompasses all those in their twenty-first year from their twenty-first birthday up until the eve of their twenty-second. This is the more common or traditional use of the term 21 years old as referring to one who has not yet reached the twenty-second birthday but is over 21. A person is normally considered 21 throughout the entire birthday year. Thus this set of people would span a time of 365 days (366 in leap years). We believe this gives to the statutory language a meaning consistent with both grammar and legislative purposes. [8] To return to history for a moment, the Senate had originally wanted to include all deceased children. The House had wanted to limit recovery to those children still in college. The compromise was to include those children 21 years old or younger. The traditional college-age student is in the middle of the junior year if under 21 but in his or her senior year when 21 years old. By interpreting the phrase 21 years old or younger to include the entire twenty-first year of children 21 years old but under the age of 22 years, we give the fullest effect to both the House and Senate general purpose, aim, or policy reflected in the words of the statute. Kaczorowski, 309 Md. at 513, 525 A.2d at 632. [9] JUDGMENT AFFIRMED. APPELLANT TO PAY THE COSTS.