Court Opinion

ID: 9868695
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-26 18:48:21.558444+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:45:52.700573
License: Public Domain

ON MOTION FOR REHEARING.
Counsel for the Fire Association call our attention to the 7th paragraph of Article 3084, Revised Statutes, which reads as follows; “The income of the company during the preceding year, stating the amount received for premiums, specifying separately fire, marine and inland transportation premiums, deducting reinsurance, the amount received for interest, and from all other sources.” That paragraph sets out the manner in which the income should he shown in the report which the insurance company was by law required to jnake. It is assumed in the argument by the learned counsel that this provision of the statute is in force and applies to fire insurance companies under the law of 1907. So far as the paragraph copied above is in conflict with the requirements of section 8 of the Act of 1907, as quoted in our original opinion, the latter act must prevail. The Act of 1907 prescribes with certainty what the report of the fire insurance company shall be upon the subject of its gross receipts and its terms are not modified by the former law. Its language, therefore, must be given effect in order to arrive at the legislative intent.
Counsel also insist that we should! be governed by the construction placed upon the former law by the executive officers, charged with its enforcement. When consistent with the language construed and when that to he construed is the same, such construction is entitled to great weight, but when the language to be construed is plain and unambiguous, as is that before us, executive construction is entitled to little consideration. (Galveston, H. & S. A. Ry. Co. v. State, 81 Texas, 57.) In the case cited the court said: “If the words contained in the act under consideration were of doubtful meaning we could not lightly disregard the construction given them by the officers of the State who were called upon to act upon them. But their import appears too clear to admit of any reasonable doubt. We are constrained, therefore, to follow our own convictions, regardless of the views manifested by the acts of the officers of the executive department.”
We are not construing the 7th paragraph of article 3084, but an entirely different law which does not even contain the same language embraced in that article of the statute, therefore from no standpoint can it he said that the construction placed upon the article referred *382to should influence this coui;t in determining the question now presented to it.
The paragraph quoted from article 3084 serves a good purpose, however, in arriving at the intention of the Legislature in enacting the law of 1907. In the former law one deduction was allowed, that is, “reinsurance” which by a plain rule of construction excluded all others and necessarily excluded “returned premiums” as a deduction 'under that statute. When the Legislature came to enact a new law upon the same subject they omitted the deduction for “reinsurance” which had been previously allowed, and thereby manifested an intention that the law should be so changed that no deduction should be made, that is, that “gross receipts” should mean all of the premiums received by the insurance company for insurance on property in this State without any deduction; just what the words mean in their ordinary acceptation. . The decisions by the courts of other States upon statutes so widely different from ours can furnish no guide to us and certainly can not be allowed to control this court in the interpretation of the plain language of a statute of this State. The motion for rehearing is therefore overruled.
Filed March 11, 1908.