Court Opinion

ID: 9535308
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:47:51.060501+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:33:12.997379
License: Public Domain

Finley, J.
(concurring)—At risk .of underlining the obvious, it is worth explicitly setting out why these enactments do not “conflict in purpose.” Chapter 279 of the Laws of 1959 added to RCW 60.04.020 and its proviso affecting single family residences a lien protecting suppliers of equipment. Chapter 278 of the Laws of 1959 added to the existing statute (Laws of 1957, ch. 214, § 1.) a proviso making it effective, against material or supplies delivered after the notice of intent to claim the lien, regardless of whether or not the notice was effective as to prior deliveries.
Chapter .279 redefined the class of property upon which the lien could be perfected; chapter 278 altered part of the procedure by which a lien could be perfected on items within the lienable .class. If this case had involved an attempt to assert the lien against equipment delivered subsequent, to. a notice of intent to assert the lien, the purposes of the two enactments could be said to conflict; for one rendered equipment lienable, while the other rendered the lien against lienable items (but not equipment) perfectable as to subsequently delivered items.
The . instant case does not involve this problem. It involves -an attempt to assert the lien against material subsequently supplied.. The purpose of the second enactment being to render equipment lienable, the statutes exhibit no conflict of purpose as to the instant case. Each is capable of standing or operating alone. ■■
It .should be\noted'that the legislature, later corrected both .the problem in the instant case arid the problem -.which *945I have posed as putting a case of clear conflict of purpose. Laws of 1965, ch. 98, § 1. This was done by consolidating the two amendments discussed by the majority in such a manner as to render the change in the procedure by which the lien could be perfected applicable to equipment, as well as to material and supplies. RCW 60.04.020.
Both the majority and the dissent discuss implied repeal. While I am in agreement with the majority that the rules of law and policy formulated by this court in dealing with implied repeal are relevant to the instant case, it is somewhat fictitious to regard what happened here as a possible implied repeal. It would appear that these enactments were in essence considered simultaneously, that their inconsistency was due to inadvertent error, and that any attempt to reconcile them must be somewhat mechanical in its operation.
I agree with Hunter, C. J., that we are required to give effect to both enactments if that is possible. I am quite certain that interpretation of RCW 1.12.025 in the manner recommended by Justices Hill and Neill would result in the exception—“otherwise, the act last filed in the office of the secretary of state in point of time, shall control” (italics mine) —swallowing the rule.
Without differences of opinion, there would be no need for appellate courts. It appears to me that there is room in this case for reasonable differences of opinion, and that it is clear that the majority has not read the statute as it presently stands into the previous enactment.
The dissent takes the position that the legislature repealed by omission or implicit deletion a law which had not yet pursued its route through the Governor’s office to the statute books. The analysis is a subtle one, and entirely collateral to the central issue, which is the proper characterization of the purposes of these two enactments.
The dissent’s argument as to repeal by deletion fails for the simple reason that chapter 279 did not purport to amend, in either title or text, anything with respect to RCW 60.04-.020 except “Section 1, chapter 45, Laws of 1909 as last *946amended by section 1, chapter 214 Laws of 1957, . . .” In nay opinion, the dissent’s attempted characterization of chapter 279’s effect on chapter 278 is a fishing expedition in the Sahara.
For the reasons given, I concur in the opinion of the majority.