Opinion ID: 2222460
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Does section 533.30 by implication amend section 533.3?

Text: In enacting section 533.30, quoted above, the 1975 legislature struck a prior section which permitted a consolidation of credit unions only between two or more credit unions organized under the laws of the state of Iowa. See § 533.30, The Code 1975. The substitute statute, in subsection 5, provides it shall be construed to permit a credit union organized under any other statute to merge with one organized under this chapter [533], or to permit one organized under this chapter to merge with one organized under any other statute. See § 533.30, The Code 1977. The Iowa Credit Union points out that, after such a merger with a foreign union, The rights and privileges of the members of the merged credit union shall remain intact. § 533.30(4), The Code. From this it reasons that one of the basic rights and privileges of an Iowa credit union member is to go to the office of the [merged] credit union [in Iowa] to transact his business. The Iowa Credit Union asserts this is consistent with the plain legislative intent and a contrary construction would make sections 533.3 and 533.30 repugnant and irreconcilable. This being so, section 533.30, the most recent and special enactment, must prevail. Section 533.3 must be considered as amended by implication and considered inapplicable where there has been a section 533.30 merger. We are not so persuaded. The implied powers claimed by the Iowa Credit Union for the contemplated surviving union plunge beyond the parameters we fixed in Iowa Credit Union League v. Iowa Department of Banking, 268 N.W.2d 165, 171 (Iowa 1978): [F]inancial institutions, such as credit unions and banks, are organizations of enumerated powers. Since the operation of financial institutions is fraught with hazards to the public, such institutions have only the authority they are given. They cannot operate on the basis that they can proceed with a new function unless it is forbidden; they must show that it is within the intendment of their statute either granted by the statute in express terms or necessary or requisite to a granted power. (Emphasis added and in original.) Amendments by implication are not favored, and if possible statutes will be construed so as to be consistent with each other. State v. Rauhauser, 272 N.W.2d 432, 434 (Iowa 1978); see Lineberger v. Bagley, 231 Iowa 937, 942, 2 N.W.2d 305, 308 (1942); 1A A. Sutherland, Statutes and Statutory Construction § 22.13, at 139 (4th ed. C. Sands 1972). There is nothing in section 533.3 which prohibits the merger of an Iowa credit union into a foreign or federal credit union under section 533.30. It simply prohibits a foreign credit union from using the designation credit union or representing itself as conducting such a business in Iowa. There may be many reasons for an Iowa credit union to merge into a foreign credit unionfor example, when an industry relocatesbut such a transformation cannot furnish such justification for a foreign credit union to operate in Iowa that section 533.3 must be deemed amended by implication.