Court Opinion

ID: 9611446
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 03:56:50.629876+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:15.959165
License: Public Domain

RONALD R. HOLLIGER, Judge,
concurring.
I concur in the result only. I write separately because of what may appear to be small but what I believe important differences in philosophy and rationale. The majority opinion at the conclusion of its discussion says that it “excises the phrase” from the original 287.210 adopted in the 2005 regular session. I agree with that holding. The conclusion is inescapable that the inclusion of that phrase was never intended by the legislature given the legislative history outlined by the majority. The majority of courts have recognized their power and duty to disregard, strike or eliminate, or excise words or phrases improvidently placed in legislation. Sutherland Statutory Construction Section 47:87 (2007).
It is a rare, rare power, however and can only be done in the most egregious circumstances and only then to carry out the express legislative intent. Although several Missouri courts have acknowledged the general principle in at least one case, the Missouri Supreme Court has applied it. In Leibson v. Henry, 356 Mo. 953, 204 S.W.2d 310 (banc 1947), the legislature addressed language in a 1919 statutory enactment that had picked up unchanged various but not all language from a 1913 version of the same statute. Id. at 315. The court held that some of the language “was simply not deleted” that related to other language that was removed.
Nevertheless, I feel compelled to express some concerns about the approach taken by the majority opinion. Rules of statutory construction are, unfortunately, “necessary evils.” Our lodestar in reviewing legislation is and must always be in a system of separate powers, the intent of the legislature expressed through its plain and ordinary language. And despite the judiciary’s critics, that language is sometimes neither plain nor ordinary and the intent may be difficult to discern. For obvious reasons we can never look to pub-*112lie or private statements by individuals in or out of the legislature about the intent of an enactment. Equally obvious is that we cannot look to our own personal views about that intent.
Once we do so it is a short path to the conclusion that we have the constitutional power to evaluate not only the logic or absurdity of legislative enactments but their reasonableness or wisdom as well. I am not willing to take a step anywhere near that path. Nor have other judges over the past two hundred years. Thus, courts have developed rules of statutory construction to aid us in restraining and not resorting to our own personal views or merely the personal views of all those who have an opinion about legislative intent, including sometimes even individual legislators themselves. But even though called “rules” of construction they are in their truest sense only aids. There are dozens of them. There is no numerical hierarchy for their application. Depending upon the choice and order of application they can even lead to inconsistent, although still “logical” results. And although they solve most problems of legislative interpretation in a satisfactory and acceptable manner based on legal principles in a society of the rule of law and a government of three separate branches they do not, in my opinion, in this case.
My disagreement with the majority opinion is to the extent that it suggests or holds that we can use aids to construction to refuse to enforce unambiguous statutory enactments on the basis that they lead to absurd results. There is no ambiguity in the phrase “and those addressed in section 287.120.” I do not believe that the legislature intended the mischief and result that this court is now faced with resolving. I do believe that they made a mistake, doing something accidentally or carelessly that they did not mean to do. The legislature did not intend to repeal the workers compensation law or make it purely voluntary. But if I were to begin basing my decisions on what I believe is “illogical or absurd” in the face of clear language then I have violated my constitutional oath to follow the law as written. I do not suggest that the majority opinion has strictly done so, but I believe that it is susceptible of the reading that- courts have power to resolve inconsistencies based on their views of the reasonableness of the enacted language.
It is not constitutionally acceptable in my view for a court to say that what the legislature clearly stated leads to an absurd or illogical result such that the courts have the power to ignore and render meaningless a legislative enactment that is otherwise constitutional. If such a power exists it can be abused and will in every case be subject to someone’s complaint that it has been. It makes it too easy to criticize our courts regardless of the political and philosophical spectrum. Following the rules is the principle mechanism that any judge or a court has for avoiding the influence of personal views and biases. A court’s job is to protect the rule of law. If the legislature enacts clear language that leads to “absurd or illogical results” the legislative and executive branch must live with their mistake until they can correct it, no matter how painful or difficult to explain that result might be.
Not all rules, however, are so clear and rigid that they properly restrain our role. Such are the rules of statutory construction as the majority applies them in this case. The rules of construction can be manipulated so as to subvert the limits of proper judicial power.
I am not critical of my colleagues. Not even the most partisan advocate really believes that the legislature intended to do what the plaintiff argues the original amendment to section 287.120 does.
*113That was clearly not the intent of the legislature and that intent can be discerned from what the legislature said and did without resorting to concepts of illogic or absurdity. Neither the pre-existing law nor the original SB I contained a subsection 11 in section 287.120. As originally passed by the Senate there was still no subsection 11 (and consequently no cross-reference in 287.110). While the Senate version was being considered by a House committee a version of subsection 11 was added as well as the cross-reference in section 287.110 (“and those addressed in subsection 11 of section 287.120”). When the House Committee Substitute reached the House floor for debate Amendment 11 was offered and adopted. Amendment 11 deleted certain lines of the committee version of subsection 11 and inserted different language. The amendment also called for the amendment of all “intersectional references.” That is an apparent reference to cross references to subsection 11. After House action was completed neither the Senate nor the House would concede to the other’s position so a conference committee was appointed. During the conference committee the version of subsection 11 adopted on the House floor was deleted. Obviously during the editing process the phrase “subsection 11” was removed from the last clause as well. It is an inescapable conclusion that the editing process failed to notice the last clause in section 287.110 had been added when the House Committee wrote the first version of subsection 11. In effect, the editing removed House Amendment 11 without noticing its relationship to the original version of subsection 11 which had added the clause in question to section 287.110. Those words in the last clause of section 287.110 which were ultimately adopted had no purpose except as a cross reference to the now removed subsection 11 of 287.120.1 Most simply said, a drafting and editing error occurred. That to me should be the end of our analysis.

. This chain of events appears from a review of the various versions of SB1 and the House and Senate Journals as they moved through the legislative process. There is no journal record of specific actions taken by regular committees or the conference committee except their final result.