Court Opinion

ID: 9706494
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 01:44:55.391723+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:22.381174
License: Public Domain

LARSEN, Justice,
dissenting.
I must vigorously dissent to the plurality’s decision and reasoning in this case, particularly its application of a “strict construction” approach to the interpretation of the public assistance provisions of the Public Welfare Code. By engaging in dubious semantics, the plurality’s interpretation of the Code has deprived many deserving claimants of benefits that the legislature surely intended them to have. I would affirm the Commonwealth Court’s common sense and just decision on the basis of Judge Colins’ opinion for the unanimous panel (Colins, Rogers and Craig, JJ.) which states, in relevant part:
It is admitted by the Department that four out of the five claimants had the requisite 48 months of employment over the previous eight years. These four claimants were denied general assistance solely because they had not qualified for unemployment benefits.
In dealing with questions of legislative intent, we are directed by the Statutory Construction Act of 1972 (Act), to construe statutory words and phrases “according to the rules of grammar and according to their common or approved usage”. 1 Pa.C.S. § 1903; Campbell v. Workmen’s Compensation Appeal Board (M. Glosser & Sons), [80] Pa.Commonwealth Ct. [148], 472 A.2d 272 (1984).
In the instant matter, we are confronted with the problem that the word “exhaust” is subject to two different interpretations. In conjunction with administrative law, i.e. exhaustion of administrative remedies, the term exhaustion does not require that a party have an adminis*179trative remedy as a precondition to access to the courts, but merely means that if an administrative remedy exists, the party must first use it. However, the Department maintains that you cannot exhaust something unless it was there to begin with.
This ambiguity is further reinforced by the fact that counsel for each side use the same quotes from the same legislative debates, by the same legislators, to reinforce their particular position. And, curiously enough, they are both correct. This further emphasizes the ambiguous nature of the phrase.
“When the words of the statute are not explicit, the intention of the general assembly may be ascertained by considering, among other matters ... the contemporaneous legislative history.” 1 Pa.C.S. § 1921(c)(7). However, this Court has declared that “the records of individual legislators in debate are not relevant for the obvious reason that they represent only one person’s view and not that of the opposing or enacting body.” Zemprelli v. Thornburgh, 47 Pa.Commonwealth Ct. 43, 54, 407 A.2d 102, 109 (1979).
The legislative intent of the Code is defined at Section 401. The Department claims that the stated purpose of the Code establishes a “worthy man” concept. The only portion of Section 401 which could indicate such a purpose would be the following which states “that assistance shall be administered in such a way and manner as to encourage self-respect, self-dependency and the desire to be a good citizen and useful to society.”
The Department argues that its interpretation of “exhaust” fulfills the above-stated legislative intent. It allegedly discourages those who have quit their employment or have been fired from being able to collect general assistance, even though they may have qualified for such assistance. To that extent, the Department’s interpretation of the term “exhaust” does “encourage ... self-dependency and the desire to be ... useful to society”.
*180However, the claimants have shown, and we concur, that the Department’s interpretation also deprives those who are not “unworthy”. It is undisputed that claimant, Sandra Fisher, had 62 months of employment over the previous eight years. Prior to applying for general assistance, however, Ms. Fisher was employed under a training program and such income did not qualify the claimant for unemployment compensation.
There is no basis on which Ms. Fisher can be classified as a person “unworthy” of general assistance. By working for 62 months out of the last eight years, she has demonstrated her “self-dependency and the desire to be a good citizen and useful to society”. We are guided by principles of statutory construction which presume that the Legislature did not intend a result that is “absurd ... or unreasonable”. 1 Pa.C.S. § 1922(1).
It is well settled that a court has no power to insert a word into a statutory provision when the Legislature has failed to supply it. Worley v. Augustine, 310 Pa.Superior Ct. 178, 456 A.2d 558 (1983); In Re: Township of Upper Chichester, 52 Pa. Commonwealth Ct. 121, 415 A.2d 1250 (1980). The Department argues strongly that the Courts should not presume that the Legislature intended that which it declined to say; however, the Department actually maintains that by use of the term “exhausted”, the Legislature meant “received and exhausted”. If that is what the Legislature intended it is certainly familiar with the verb “receive” and could easily have utilized it.
We find that the Legislature did not intend that an applicant for general assistance, pursuant to Section 432(3)(i)(H) of the Code, qualify for unemployment benefits as a prerequisite to entitlement for general assistance. The applicant need only exhaust such benefits should they be available.
82 Pa.Cmwlth. 116, 475 A.2d at 874-76. (footnotes omitted).
*181In rejecting this interpretation, the plurality erroneously states that the “problem with Commonwelath Court’s interpretation is that they are reading words into the Public Welfare Act rather than accepting the plain meaning of the statute.” At 620. The plurality then ignores its own admonition against “reading words into” the Public Welfare Code in holding that “we must conclude that the Legislature intended ‘exhaust’ to mean the Appellees must have qualified for and received unemployment benefits and depleted their entitlement to same____” At 170-171. I cannot agree that the “plain meaning” of the word “exhausted” is “qualified for and received and depleted”-merely ascribing a meaning to a word and labelling that meaning as the “plain” one does not necessarily make it so. It is the plurality that “reads words into” the Code, not the Commonwealth Court.1
My principal quarrel with the plurality is not, however, one of semantics, for reasonable men and women may differ as to their interpretations of various words and phrases and may also differ as to the means they use to arrive at their interpretations. My major disagreement with the plurality is of a more fundamental and philosophical nature as it concerns the plurality’s misguided decision to construe the Public Welfare Code strictly in favor of denial or restriction of benefits to claimants, (“we read our statute and the legislative history behind it to impose stricter standards for claimants to receive benefits under the Act ...” At 171). While the plurality may well be correct that the “flavor” of the Welfare Reform Act of 1982 is to “tighten the reigns of spending”, see Price v. Cohen, 715 F.2d 87 (3d Cir.1983), that “flavor” does not obliterate the underlying objectives and goals of the Public *182Welfare Code which are set forth in section 401, 62 P.S. § 401, as follows:
Legislative intent
It is hereby declared to be the legislative intent to promote the welfare and happiness of all the people of the Commonwealth, by providing public assistance to all of its needy and distressed; that assistance shall be administered promptly and humanely with due regard for the preservation of family life, and without discrimination on account of race, religion or political affiliation; and that assistance shall be administered in such a way and manner as to encourage self-respect, self-dependency and the desire to be a good citizen and useful to society.
This statement of legislative intent was not altered by the Welfare Reform Act of 1982,2 and firmly establishes that the Public Welfare Code is humanitarian and remedial in nature — as such, the courts are required to construe its provisions liberally in favor of coverage. Statutory Construction Act of 1972, 1 Pa.C.S.A. § 1928, Rule of strict and liberal construction;3 Penn Hills School District v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, 496 Pa. 620, 437 A.2d 1213 (1981); Krawchuk v. Philadelphia Electric Co., 497 Pa. 115, 439 A.2d 627 (1981) (liberal construction of Workmen’s Compensation Act). The “strict construction” approach advocated today by the plurality is diametrically opposed to the objectives and goals of the Public Welfare Code. The legislature may have intended to “tighten the reigns of spending” by the Welfare Reform Act, but the plurality’s interpretation “tightens the reigns” with such force that the original purpose and objective of the Public Welfare Code is ignored and frustrated.

. The plurality also suggests that the interpretation of "exhausted” by the Commonwealth Court has violated the “supreme principle of statutory interpretation [that] each word used by the Legislature has meaning and was used for a reason, not as mere surplusage.” At 169. However, the plurality does not elaborate further on this perceived violation of this “supreme principle” and, in fact, takes off in the other direction in reasoning that the Commonwealth Court has “read words into" the Act.

. This section has been modified by § 13(b) of Act 1978, June 20, P.L. 477, No. 70 creating the Department of Aging, repealing section 401 insofar as the section is inconsistent with said Act.

. As the public assistance provisions of the Public Welfare Code are not among the enumerated categories of provisions to be strictly construed, 1 Pa.C.S.A. § 1928(b)(l)-(8), the legislature requires these provisions to be “liberally construed to effect their objects and to promote justice." 1 Pa.C.S.A. § 1928(c).