Court Opinion

ID: 9572687
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:43:41.315892+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:33:48.894930
License: Public Domain

Duckworth, Chief Justice,
dissenting. While I fully concur in all that is said by Mr. Justice Candler in his dissent, and also by Presiding Justice Head in !his dissent, I should like to state these additional reasons why I dissent. To give my approval to the majority opinion I am convinced that I would have to violate these accepted and binding rules of law concerning construction by courts of legislative enactments, to wit: (1) where the law is unambiguous — -that is, not susceptible to two or more meanings — it stands self-construed, and courts are bound to accept it as written; (2) ascertainment and effectuation of legislative intent is the supreme rule of construction; and (3) if two acts are in irreconcilable conflict, the later repeals the former by implication.
The statute with which we are here concerned was enacted in 1937, and is found in Code Ann. § 92-3002 (o) (Ga. L. 1937, pp. 109, 112), and is as follows: “The word ‘dividend’ when used in this law for the purpose of defining a taxable dividend means any distribution made by a corporation out of its earnings or profits to its shareholders or members whether such distribution be made in cash or in other property or in a stock different from the stock on which the dividend is paid. It includes such portion of the assets of a corporation distributed at the time of dissolution as would in effect be a distribution of earnings.” There is not an ambiguous word, or arrangement of words, in this statute. The legislature was unwilling to risk judicial speculation under the pretense of construction to fix its intent, and consequently here plainly spelled out what it intended by the use of the word “dividend.” I believe the majority has failed to give effect to the constitutionally reserved exclusive jurisdiction of the Legislative Department. When the legislature has plainly, as here, stated its intention, courts have a duty to respect and effectuate that intention. Since the legislature included all dissolutions, the *830majority should not judicially amend this by limiting it to malevolent dissolutions. By thus writing into the law something that the legislature refused to write into it, the legislature is defeated by judicial usurpation of its exclusive powers. If courts are thus to change legislation in one instance, they can do so in all instances, and the result is the destruction of the legislature and establishment of judicial tyranny and consequent destruction of human liberty. I think proper judicial restraint, which is the noblest quality of a court, forbids its entering into that part of government reserved by the Constitution exclusively for the legislature, and there undertake to determine the wisdom of legislation to suit the judicial idea of what is wise by judicial fiat under the pretense of construction, where, under all recognized rules of law, no construction is needed or permissible. It can never be too strongly emphasized that the Executive and Legislative Departments have intelligence comparable to the Judiciary, and generally their experiences and information in fields of legislation far excel those of the Judiciary. If there be deficiencies in valid legislation, the remedy is legislative, and never judicial, action. I believe by citing, as support for its ruling, Carroll v. Ragsdale, 192 Ga. 118 (15 S. E. 2d 210), the majority reveal a lack of understanding of the rules for construing legislation. As the writer of that opinion, I know what controlled that decision. It was the legislative intent. That intent was therein specifically enumerated. And, in construing the amendment there involved, we said: “To justify a construction of the amendment here involved that would discard these fixed principles of legislation, there must be found in that amendment language which clearly manifests a legislative intent to depart from these policies.” Had the majority read this statement, understood its true meaning, and applied it to the amendment here involved, they could not have failed to accept and abide by the plain legislative intent so unmistakably spelled out here. That would have demanded a reversal, rather than an affirmance, which is ordered. Indeed the very first sentence quoted from the above case warns of the peril where courts pretend to construe an unambiguous law, for it is as likely to be a judicial amendment as discovery of the legislative intent. That statement is *831prophetic of what has happened here, where expressed intent is ignored and judicial amendment of the law is made.
Voluminous briefs were filed by both sides, but they are but little help in this case. Rules of construction first pointed out herein show that, when they are respected and applied to the statute here involved, no further legitimate judicial inquiry is permissible, for the intention of the law is unmistakable, and the duty of courts to follow it is absolute, and the only possible judgment conforming to these rules of law is one of reversal.
Finally, I would point out that for the legislature to have enacted this law as it is amended by the majority to limit dissolutions, therein referred to, to only malevolent ones, would have been pointless. As the law then stood, neither the taxpayer nor the State could have been affected in any remote degree by whether the dissolution was in good or bad faith. Thus is shown how the majority compounds the error by judicially amending the law in an utterly immaterial respect.
Presiding Justice Head concurs in this dissent.