Court Opinion

ID: 9790842
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:00:16.462048+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:32.005870
License: Public Domain

Allegrucci, J.,
concurring and dissepting: I agree with the majority on the issues raised by the defepdant except as to restitution. I respectfully dissent from the majority’s holding that the victim’s son and his father are “aggrieved parties” under K.S.A. J991 Supp. 21-4610(4)(a) apd therefore are entitled to restitution.
The majority’s reliance on State v. Yost, 232 Kan. 370, 654 P.2d 458 (1982), overruled in part on other grounds State v. Haines, 238 Kan. 478, 712 P.2d 1211, cert. denied 479 U.S. 837 (1986), js misplaced. There is nothing in the holding in Yost to support the majority’s finding that reparation or restitution includes loss or damages incurred by anyone other than the victim of the crime. In Yost, the defendant was convicted of giving a worthless check to Jim Wilson in the amount of $42,566.08 for 81 head of steers. The steers went to Julius Williams, yrho sold them on consignment. Yost was ordered to pay restitution to Wilson. Wilson obtained a judgment against Williams for the amount of the check and interest. Williams then paid the amount of the judgment to Wilson. The order of restitution was then *204modified to order payment of restitution to Williams. The issue was whether the district court had authority to substitute Williams as a party to whom the defendant was to make restitution. The basis for the payment of restitution continued to be the loss suffered by the victim.
I agree with the majority that Yost interpreted an “aggrieved party” to include one who had compensated the victim for his or her loss or damage. However, that interpretation would not include the son or his father in the present case. Nor is there support for such an interpretation in the state and federal cases discussed in the Yost opinion. One such case is United States v. Follette, 32 F. Supp. 953 (E.D. Pa. 1940). The federal district court interpreted “aggrieved party or parties” to include a surety company which had reimbursed the victim of an embezzlement. We commented:
“Finding such a construction inconsistent with restitution, [the Follette court] concluded that in a proper case the terminology should include: ‘[W]ithin its scope such persons as the owner of the contents of a letter stolen from the mail, the person defrauded by a scheme involving the use of the mails, the bank from which funds have been embezzled and the innocent person to whom a counterfeit note has been passed. Each of these persons has been directly and financially aggrieved by the criminal acts of the defendants involved.’ 32 F. Supp. at 955. Emphasis supplied.
It seems to us that the holding is a proper and reasonable construction of the questioned language.” 232 Kan. at 375.
In Yost, we held that:
“For a trial judge in a supplemental probation proceeding to substitute a newly aggrieved party for the originally aggrieved party when: The substitute party has fully paid the original party, the amount to be paid is unchanged, and the amount was never in issue, it is held there is no error as K.S.A. 21-4610, reasonably construed, allows the substitution.” 232 Kan. 370, Syl. ¶ 8.
We stated our rationale for that holding in the concluding paragraphs of the opinion:
“Neither do we believe that it enhances the image of justice for one who has compensated a directly affected party to have to negotiate with, and perhaps even to sue, the compensated party to be made whole. What if the compensated party is then judgment proof?
“Recognizing that the holding in this case rises no higher than the facts in this case, we think of the maxim: The law does not require the doing of a useless thing. We do not believe that Williams should be required to *205take a circuitous route to accomplish what the trial judge in this case would have him accomplish so simply.
“Finally, it seems to us that when Williams, paid Wilson, Wilson was no longer the aggrieved party; Williams was.” 232 Kan. at 378.
That is not the fact situation in the present case. The restitution is for loss to the victim’s son and his father and not for the loss to the victim. The majority concedes that restitution orders must have limitations and that not all tangential costs are subject to restitution. The majority, however, does not tell us what these limitations are nor identify which tangential costs are not subject to restitution. In my view, that is the function of the legislature. If new meaning is to be given to the words “aggrieved party,’’ it must be done by the legislature and not this court.
I would reverse the district court’s granting of restitution for airfare to transport the victim’s son and for the $120 in lost wages to the father.
Holmes, C.J., joins in the foregoing concurring and dissenting opinion.