Court Opinion

ID: 9669418
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 02:55:42.104885+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:42:30.960796
License: Public Domain

STRUTZ, Judge
(dissenting).
I dissent. I cannot agree with the majority of the court on the effect of the enactment by the State Legislature of Chapter 234 of the 1941 Session Laws, now embodied in Section 11-10-19 of the North Dakota Century Code. That chapter provided that, whenever the county commissioners deem it expedient to do so, photography may be used in the making of county records. I cannot agree that the Legislature intended, by this Act, to permit microfilming of all records required to be kept by the Register of Deeds. The law requires the Register of Deeds to keep a full and true record, in proper books, of many and varied instruments, and also to record, in a suitable book, a description of names, brands, trade-marks, labels, etc.; to keep separate tract indexes for transfers and for liens; to keep separate grantor and grantee indexes; and to record many other instruments. Surely the Legislative Assembly, by merely authorizing the use of photography in making county records, did not intend to substitute the microfilm can for the many and various books required to be kept. That the Legislature did not intend to include microfilming by enactment of this chapter *527is further substantiated by the fact that microfilming is known as “microphotog-raphy.” World Book Encyclopedia; Compton’s Pictured Encyclopedia. Had the Legislature intended to include microfilming, it would have provided not only for “photographic or photostatic copies” but also for “microphotographic copies.” This it did not do. Construction of the words used by the Legislature cannot go beyond the meaning of the words used where such meaning is clear and unambiguous.
I believe that this court can and should take notice of the fact that, at the time of the enactment of the 1941 statute permitting “photographic or photostatic copies” to be made, photograph and photostat copying machines had appeared on the market, the use of which enabled the making of exact photocopies of instruments and the reproducing of such instruments in far less time than they could be reproduced or copied on a typewriter, which was the usual method of reproduction prior to the invention of the photostat machine. In 1941, the country was preparing for war and help was scarce. It was the use of photocopying machines that was to be permitted and authorized by this statute, not the complete amending of all statutes affecting the recording of instruments by the Register of Deeds and the substitution of microfilm cans for record books. If the Legislature had intended so drastic a change, it should have so stated and not merely have provided:
“That whenever it shall be deemed expedient by the board of county commissioners to use photography in the making of permanent county records, such use is hereby authorized, * *.”
The provision that “such copies may be filed and kept instead of the record books or records of instruments and documents required,” merely authorizes the filing of photostatic copies instead of the normal copies theretofore made.
Finally, I do not believe a microfilm is a “copy” of the instrument filed. A “copy” implies or requires identity, and normal or reasonable legibility. The word “copy” implies that the instrument so labeled is identical with an original instrument. Blatz v. Travelers Ins. Co., 272 App.Div. 9, 68 N.Y.S.2d 801, 806. A “copy” is a reproduction or duplication of a thing, or that which comes so near to the original as to give to persons seeing it the idea created by the original. McConnor v. Kaufman, D.C., 49 F.Supp. 738, 744 (1943). Surely the copies which the Legislature intended should be kept by the Register of Deeds are copies which would be available to the public. The microfilm is not such a copy. It is something from which a copy can be made, and therefore does not come within the definition of a copy as used in Section 11-10-19 of the North Dakota Century Code.
I would affirm the decision of the district court.