Court Opinion

ID: 9531156
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:08:05.70157+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:21.396058
License: Public Domain

LATIMER, Justice
(concurring in the results).
I concur in the results.
It is not possible to give the words used in Section 104 —2—5.10, Chapter 19, Laws of Utah 1943, their ordinary meaning and arrive at a legislative intent with any reasonable degree of certainty. Almost every suggested rearrangement of words or phrases brings about absurd results and creates irreconcilable conflicts with other statutory enactments. It would serve no useful purpose to set out all the reasons why the Legislature could not have intended that result. It is sufficient for my purposes to say that even when tested by every known rule of construction, the act is indefinite, uncertain, inconsistent, muddled and confused. Regardless of which rule is ap*483plied, property rights which should be protected are either destroyed, barred or impaired without good reason. While I believe the Legislature only intended to prescribe for a short statute of limitation the enactment goes far beyond that and under certain circumstances prevents the courts from considering questions affecting title to property.
It can be assumed that the Legislature did not intend to deny to courts the authority to adjudicate property rights by barring both causes of actions and defenses, but that is what the section states and any attempt to construe it to escape that result only brings about other absurdities.
I recognize that our duty requires that if, by applications of known or accepted rules of construction, we can determine the legislative intent with any degree of certainty, we should do so. My difficulty in this case is that when I stay within the framework of the act and give the words their ordinary and acceptable meaning uncertainty, inconsistency and vagueness exist.
In the enactment of a statute reasonable precision is required. Certainty need not be absolute and the courts should not invalidate legislative acts because they are inaccurately drawn or because the expressions used are awkward, clumsy or wanting in precision. However, if uncertainty and vagueness cannot be removed, or if removed, the legislative intent is still unascertainable, then the act should be declared void and inoperative.
In 50 Am. Juris., Paragraph 472, Statutes, the general rule which I prefer to follow is stated as follows: “Indefiniteness and Uncertainty. — In the enactment of statutes reasonable precision is required. Indeed, one of the prime requisites of any statute is certainty, and legislative enactments may be declared by the courts to be inoperative and void for uncertainty in the meaning thereof. This power may be exercised where the statute is so incomplete, or so *484irreconcilably conflicting, or so vague or indefinite, that the statute cannot be executed and the court is unable, by the application of known and accepted rules of construction, to determine what the Legislature intended, with any reasonable degree of certainty, * * *”
The infirmities in the section cannot be cured without its being completely revised and this is a legislative function. I, therefore, conclude the act is unenforceable.