Court Opinion

ID: 9795121
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:20:56.224111+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:26:51.066419
License: Public Domain

Agosti, J.,
concurring:
I concur in the result reached by the majority. I believe that the words “Pacific standard time” must be given their common and ordinary meaning. When that is done, it is clear that the Legislature lawfully proceeded to consider and pass laws until 1:00 a.m. Pacific daylight saving time.
I write separately because I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that the words “120 calendar days following its commencement” are ambiguous. I believe that the phrase is clear and unambiguous, and therefore that resort to rules of construction is improper.1 Another way of saying that the Legislature shall *543adjourn the regular session ‘ ‘ 120 calendar days following its commencement” is to say that the Legislature must adjourn the session 120 days after it starts. That does not mean that the Legislature can meet for 121 days. Such a conclusion is as unreasonable as concluding that a five-day workweek means six actual days of work, or that a three-month summer vacation from school really means four months off.

See, e.g., County of Clark v. Doumani, 114 Nev. 46, 52, 952 P.2d 13, 16 (1998) (holding that when a statute’s language is plain and unambiguous, *543there is no room for construction and courts are not permitted to search for its meaning beyond the statute itself); see also Rogers v. Heller, 117 Nev. 169, 176 n.17, 18 P.3d 1034, 1038 n.17 (2001) (holding that the rules governing statutory construction also govern the construction of constitutional provisions).