Court Opinion

ID: 9548904
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:10:29.995162+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:19:36.000786
License: Public Domain

WILLIAMS, Chief Justice
(dissenting).
The question in this appeal is whether the surety on a real estate broker’s bond is liable on each judgment against the broker, up to a limit of $1000.00 per judgment, or whether it is liable only in the total amount of $1000.00.
The majority of the members of this Court hold for total liability of not to exceed $1000.00. I do not agree.
The applicable statute is 59 O.S.1961 § 848:
“The Commission shall not issue any real estate broker’s license or real estate salesman’s license, or a renewal thereof, until the applicant therefor has filed with the Commission a Surety Bond in the sum of One Thousand ($1,000.00) Dollars in a form and with sureties approved by the Commission, which bond shall provide that the obli-gor therein will pay to the extent of One Thousand ($1,000.00) Dollars any judgment which may be recovered against such licensee for loss or damages arising from his activities as such a real estate salesman or real estate broker.”
Webster’s New International Dictionary,, Second Edition, defines the word “any” as follows:
“ * * * all, taken distributively; every; used esp. in assertions and denials with emphasis on unlimited scope.”
By 25 O.S.1961 § 25 it is provided that:
“Words used in the singular number include the plural, and the plural the singular, except where a contrary intention plainly appears.”
Nothing is said in the statute specifically limiting the operation of the word “any” to one judgment. See Maryland Casualty Company et al. v. State Industrial Commission et al., 139 Okl. 302, 282 P. 293.
The construction of the words “any judgment” in 59 O.S.1961 § 848 is of primary importance in deciding this appeal. Do such words mean “any one judgment” or do they refer to “each and every judgment?” In Cravens v. First State Bank of Seminole, Okl., 355 P.2d 1025, in the third paragraph of the syllabus we said:
“A promissory note including in the stipulation an agreement that any extension of time made shall not affect liability, indicates that an indefinite number of extensions was intended.” (emphasis ours)
In Pioneer Construction Co. v. First State Bank of Oklahoma City, 60 Okl. 123, 158 P. 894 and Gregg v. Oklahoma State Bank of Ada, 72 Okl. 193, 179 P. 613, the words “any extension” were held to be any one of an indefinite number of extensions.
59 O.S.1961 § 846, a part of the statute in question, provides:
“The Attorney General of the State shall render the Commission opinions on all questions of law relating to the interpretation of this Act, * *
*219It was the uncontradicted testimony that the Oklahoma Real Estate Commission provided representatives of defendant surety company with copies of a 1949 opinion of the attorney general of Oklahoma to the effect that it was his opinion that the broker’s bond covered every judgment up to the amount of $1000.00; that defendant’s representatives were advised in 1950 by the secretary-treasurer of the Oklahoma Real Estate Commission that it was the Commission’s opinion that such broker’s bond had no limit other than $1000.00 per judgment; that since said time defendant has written at least 60% of all such bonds written in Oklahoma; that defendant submitted to the Commission a proposed continuation certificate; that said certificate was rejected by the Commission because it showed a $1000.00 limitation on the bond. In Oklahoma Real Estate Commission v. National Business & Property Exchange, Inc., 10 Cir., 238 F.2d 606, the Court said:
“It is the general rule that an agency charged with the duty of administering an act is impliedly clothed with power to construe it as a necessary precedent to administrative action.”
In Standard Surety & Casualty Company of New York et al. v. State of Oklahoma ex rel. Thilsted et al., 10 Cir., 145 F.2d 605, the Court said:
“It is a rule of wide recognition that in case of uncertainty or ambiguity in a statute weight should be given to the long continued and consistent construction placed upon it by the administrative agency charged with its execution.
“The re-enactment of a statutory provision without material change is persuasive of a legislative recognition and approval of the consistent administrative construction placed upon it.”
The majority opinion in this case states that:
“Should the act be construed to mean that while the required bond purports to be in the penal sum of $1,000.00 and in conformity with the statute which does not require any more than this sum, yet, after recovery for that amount, the obligors shall continue to be liable for other and additional amounts without limit, then the requirement would clearly be unreasonable. No surety could properly be expected to undertake such an indefinite and unlimited responsibility.”
This argument that a company would not know what premium to charge if it were to be liable to each judgment creditor of a broker is of no legal force. Industry must find the answer to its problems within the limits permitted by the law. If a bonding company cannot ascertain what premium to charge because of unlimited aggregate liability, it may decline to write bonds of the character here involved. The testimony was that copies of the opinion of the attorney general were sent to several companies and there was no evidence that any of such companies including defendant company refused to write such a bond under the conditions as set forth by the attorney general and the commission. It would seem that defendant and other companies writing real estate broker’s bonds operate as if they think they know what premiums to charge.
The majority opinion states that it agrees that the statute requiring a bond undoubtedly was enacted for the protection of the public but the practical result of the opinion is to protect only the first person acquiring a judgment against the broker in the amount of $1000.00. Under such opinion, the payment by the surety of $1000.00 exonerates it as to any one else whom the broker may defraud.
It is my position that the surety on a real estate broker’s bond is not limited in liability to a total of $1000.00, but that its liability on each and every judgment rendered against the surety is limited to $1000.00 per judgment. To hold otherwise would be to go directly contrary to my interpretation of the plain meaning of the legislative enactment and would deprive persons dealing with brokers of the protection the Legislature clearly intended they should have. Surely the Legislature did not intend to have one benefit for a man first hurt by a *220broker and none for those hurt thereafter. Under the majority opinion if in January a broker’s surety paid a proper $1000.00 claim under its bond, thereafter those doing business with the broker in the succeeding eleven months would not have the protection of a bond.
I therefore respectfully dissent.