Court Opinion

ID: 9650005
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 15:19:07.523537+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:16.814539
License: Public Domain

SAUFLEY, C.J.,
with whom LEVY, J., joins, concurring.
[¶ 58] This case presents a classic jurisprudential problem: how to interpret legislative intent when a particular phrase within a statutory sentence plainly leads to one conclusion, but the context of the sentence within which the phrase falls leads, after consideration of the legislative history, to a flatly contrary conclusion. The question is this: Did the Maine Legislature, when it used the phrase “any other tort” in enacting 14 M.R.S. § 158 (2008), intend to expand the existing common law doctrine of charitable immunity to such an extent that it immunizes a charity from liability when the charity, whether it is a local grange or an international religious organization, engages in the intentional and surreptitious placement of a known pedophile in a position of power over vulnerable children.
[¶ 59] In the end, I join the Court and concur in the Court’s conclusion that the Legislature did not intend that result. Because, however, I agree with the dissent that the phrase “any other tort” would in a different context be understood to include intentional torts, I write separately to address the reasons I do not join the dissent.
[¶ 60] We have emphasized that Maine statutes “must be construed as a whole in order to effectuate the legislative intent.” Fernald v. Me. State Parole Bd., 447 A.2d 1236, 1238 (Me.1982). Considered in its entirety, section 158 does not purport to define or expand the charitable immunity doctrine, and the expansive phrase “any other tort,” contained within the first sentence of otherwise limiting language, creates an ambiguity requiring resort to legislative history. That history does not contain any indication of an intent to expand charitable immunity. If the Legislature had, in fact, engaged in weighing the risks posed by intentional toits, including the potential sexual assault of children, against the possibility of destructive litigation costs incurred by Maine’s long tradition of charitable organizations, one would have expected much more robust debate and much clearer language.
[¶ 61] Thus, despite the dissent’s understandable reliance on the plain language of the phrase “any other tort,” I conclude that the context of the phrase cannot support the expansive intent that the words would otherwise convey. This is a close and difficult question for any court. If the Court has read that legislative intent incorrectly, the Legislature can remedy the Court’s interpretation through clarifying language that expands charitable immunity to encompass intentional torts.