Court Opinion

ID: 9792722
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:35:05.030548+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:44.773545
License: Public Domain

CORCORAN, Justice,
Specially concurring:
I concur not only with the result in these cases, but also with the analysis, with one exception. Senate Bill 42 had in the Act’s title the surplus words “and unknown motorists,” which was a subject not referred to in the text of the Act. The opinion concludes that “the legislature intended § 20-259.01 to cover unidentified motorists” because the title of the Bill referred to “unknown motorists.”
The opinion correctly notes that under our state constitution, a provision in the text of an act is void if it addresses a subject not expressed in the act’s title. From this, however, the opinion leaps to the conclusion that the title of an act is “a good guide to legislative intent.” I cannot agree with the implication in the opinion that if the title of a bill contains surplus language, it is “read into” the text of the statute as an indication of legislative intent. At most, the excess words in the title are neutral.
My conclusion is that the best “guide to legislative intent” is to consider the text of a statute that has been adopted, rather than to consider surplus language in its title that is not contained in the text.