Court Opinion

ID: 9848692
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:25:16.041279+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:37.216624
License: Public Domain

Lovins, President,
concurring:
I concur in the result reached in this case, but I do not concur in the use of the following language: “ * * * in Fidelity Mutual Life Ins. Co. v. Sims, 1954, 140 W. Va. 49, 82 S. E. 2d 312. In the Court’s opinion, written by Judge Lovins, this question was answered in the negative: ‘Are foreign insurance companies required to qualify under Code 31-1-79 and Section 80, Chapter 119, Acts of the Legislature, 1939, Regular Session, (Michie’s Code, 1949, Serial Section 935), as well as under Code 33-2-5, 6, as insurance corporations; * * * ?’ To avoid the ‘chaos and confusion’ which may result from a careless citation of authority, it should be noted that the reference to ‘Code 31-179’ is inaccurate since this section was amended by Chapter 29, Acts of the Legislature, Regular Session, 1951. Likewise, at the Regular 1951 Session, the Legislature, by Chapter 108, materially changed the provisions of ‘Code 33-2-5’. Judge Lovins, in his concurring opinion in Cochran v. Trussler, Superintendent of Upshur County Schools, 1955, 141 W. Va. 130, 89 S. E. 2d 306, succintly stated that: ‘Hitherto, it has been the practice and usuage by this Court to accurately designate statutes as Acts of the Legislature when such statutes have been enacted after the adoption of the 1931 Code, which is the only official Code of the State of West Virginia. * * * ’. ‘The Bench and the Bar of this State are entitled to accurate citations of the authorities cited in an opinion. By such accuracy, chaos and confusion have been avoided. Otherwise, a care*412less citation of such authorities results in confusion. * * 9 99
First, the language quoted above is clearly obiter dictum and therefore unnecessary for a decision of the instant case. Second, I can attribute its inclusion in the instant opinion to no other reason except vindictiveness. I infer that the writer of the instant opinion is provoked because I filed a concurring note in the case of Cochran v. Trussler, Superintendent of Upshur County Schools, 1955, 141 W. Va. 130, 89 S. E. 2d 308. Third, the quoted language is evidently designed to create an inference that I, in my writings, say one thing and do another. I have no such intention.
I do not recede from anything I wrote in the concurring note filed by me in the Trussler case. I reiterate and reemphasize what was there written.
It was an oversight for me to improperly designate Code 31-1-79 as being part of the Official Code when it was amended by Chapter 29, Acts of the Legislature, Regular Session, 1951, and again by Chapter 26, Acts of the Legislature, 1955, Regular Session. Likewise, failing to properly cite Code, 33-2-5 when it should have been designated as Chapter 108, Acts of the Legislature, 1951, Regular Session.
I accept primary responsibility for such erroneous designations. As to secondary responsibility for such error, I do not explicitly say. These oversights could have been called to my attention before the opinion in Fidelity Mutual Life Ins. Co. v. Sims, supra, was filed.
A simple statement in the instant opinion, correcting the citations, would have sufficed.
Since the language to which I object is in an opinion of this Court wherein I concur in the result, I am left no alternative except to file this concurring note.
I deprecate engaging in a controversy of this nature in public print, and while there are many things which could be said, I will say no more. I only write this concurring note to state my position.