Court Opinion

ID: 9537406
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 07:17:38.991573+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:56:37.130155
License: Public Domain

OPALA, Justice,
concurring in result:
While I join in the court’s judgment, I cannot accede to its pronouncement.
The court holds that — in a case transferred from the small claims’ division — a different cost regime may be applied to a defeated district court defendant from that which governs an unsuccessful plaintiff in the same case. The former must pay counsel fees for the victorious adversary, while the latter is legislatively relieved from that incident of defeat.
Oklahoma has adhered, since 1908, to a more sensitive view of the XIVth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.1 Were I to assume, arguendo, that six years later our own concept of equal protection came to be watered down by U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Cade,21 would still refuse to accept Cade as a correct exposition of present-day constitutional limitations. Oklahoma’s commitment to its own, more sensitive version of equal protection survived Cade.3 Its most recent expression is found in a 1961 pronouncement by this court.4 The federal constitution does not prohibit the states from following a more expanded view of restraints than that mandated by the U.S. Supreme Court. We should therefore give continued validity to our pre-Cade ruling in Mashore.5
Fundamental law of this State is offended when courts apply to a vanquished defendant a cost regime different from that which governs a defeated plaintiff. The terms of Art. 2 §§ 6 and 7 embody an anti-discrimination component which strikes at unequal treatment in taxing court costs. *1046Both cited sections command that costs be uniform and their incidence free from unequal application.6
I would interpret the pertinent provisions of 12 O.S.Supp.1975 § 17577 as impliedly authorizing the allowance of counsel fees to the victorious defendant as costs in the case. Any doubt with respect to the constitutional validity of a statute is to be resolved in favor of the tested law’s efficacy, even if the construction that must be placed upon it — in order to make it invulnerable to attack — may not be the more natural interpretation of the legislative language used.8 Language may be altered and new words supplied to give a statute that meaning which is necessary to effectuate its purpose.9
When the amendment to § 1757 — here under consideration — was adopted in 1975, Mashore was Oklahoma’s ruling case law. It had been the unmistakably effective norm of our constitutional law for almost seven decades. The legislature may be presumed to have passed the amendment with that background knowledge in mind and with a resolve to make its enactment effective law which is free from any taint of impermissible discrimination. Our recognition of an implied extension in § 1757, which operates in favor of victorious defendants as well as successful plaintiffs, would clothe the amendment with unquestionable validity under the test of Mashore —a long-cherished value I refuse today to cast away as obsolete under present-day notions of federal or state fundamental law.
I concur in the judgment because I believe the terms of 12 O.S.Supp.1975 § 1757 impliedly authorize an allowance of counsel fees both to victorious plaintiffs and to prevailing defendants.

. Chicago, R. I. & P. Ry. Co. v. Mashore, 21 Okl. 275, 96 P. 630, 634-635 [1908],

. Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railway Company of Texas v. Cade, 233 U.S. 642, 34 S.Ct. 678, 58 L.Ed. 1135 [1914].

. Oligschlager v. Stephenson, 24 Okl. 760, 104 P. 345 [1909]; Ardmore Hotel Co. v. J. B. Klein Iron & Foundry Co., 104 Okl. 125, 230 P. 734 [1924] and Keaton et al. v. Branch, 104 Okl. 287, 231 P. 289 [1925],

. Parkhill Truck Company v. Reynolds, 359 P.2d 1064, 1067-1068 [Okl.1961],

. Chicago, R. I. & P. Ry. Co. v. Mashore, supra note 1.

. Howe v. Federal Surety Co., 161 Okl. 144, 17 P.2d 404 [1933]; In re Lee, 64 Okl. 310, 168 P. 53, L.R.A. 1918B 144 [1917]. In its recent decision the Supreme Court of Delaware held that “. . . any legislation which discriminates for or against a limited class of litigants is unconstitutional unless it is based upon a legally-cognizable distinction or reason.” Gaster v. Coldiron, 297 A.2d 384, 73 A.L.R.3d 510 [Del.1972].

. In pertinent part 12 O.S.Supp.1975 § 1757 provides: “ * * * If the plaintiff ultimately prevails in the action so transferred by the defendant, a reasonable attorney’s fee shall be allowed to plaintiffs attorney to be taxed as costs in the case. * * * ”

. Ledegar v. Bockoven, 77 Okl. 58, 185 P. 1097, 1099 [1919],

. Protest of Chicago R. I. & P. Ry. Co., 137 Okl. 186, 279 P. 319 [1929].