Court Opinion

ID: 9755953
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 21:00:59.053051+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:13.300984
License: Public Domain

*146Wolcott, Justice
(dissenting as to Question No. 1).
I do not agree with the answer the majority of the Court has given to Question No. 1. That answer'springs from the application of a judicially devised rule of statutory construction designed to ascertain “legislative intent”, viz., that when language of a statute is plain and unambiguous on its face, courts may not alter the plain meaning by construction. I recognize the rule, but in my opinion it has no application to the case at bar. It presents no problem of statutory construction. The problem before us is which of two statutory provisions is the law of the state.
Numerous cases are cited by the majority of the court in support of the application of the rule of statutory construction referred to. However, so far as appears from the reported opin-. ions, in none of them was the antecedent history of the codes then before the qourts comparable to the background of the adoption of the Delaware Code of 1953.
The history of the adoption of the Delaware Code of 1953 recited in the majority opinion demostrates clearly that the General Assembly intended by its adóption to make no change in the substance of the provisions of law governing suits against non-resident operators of motor vehicles, and that the Code Commissioners did not report that any such change had been effected. Indeed, it is apparent from the revision note following 10 Del. C., § 3112(b) that the revision in language of that section was intended by the Commissioners to be merely an elimination of what was thought to be a minor ambiguity in the prior statute. However, the apparently inadvertent result of the revision of language has been substantial changes of such import as to completely change the policy of the law and to invite resourceful counsel to urge the unconstitutionality of the stateutes as a deprivation of due process of law.
The actual intention of the General Assembly is factually clear in the case at bar. It was two-fold, first, to enact a code of laws, and, second, in enacting the code not to change the substance or policy of the existing law. The answer given by the *147majority of the court to Question No. 1 gives effect to the first and denies the second. The result is to reject actual fact and to rely upon a judicial rule of statutory construction invented to ascertain in the absence of any factual showing an oftentimes fictitious “legislative intent”.
It is said that no authority exists to give effect to the actual “legislative intent”. But is this the fact? In Atlantic Refining Co. v. Penn Seaboard Steel Corp., 16 Del. Ch. 1, 138 A. 724, the Chancellor referred to the joint resolution creating the 1915 Code Commission and to the report of the Commission to the General Assembly in order to determine the “legislative intent” in enacting the 1915 Code.
In Nigro v. Flinn, 8 W. W. Harr. 368, 192 A. 685, 688, the question was whether the inclusion of a Special Act of Limitation in the 1915 Code Chapter on General Limitations had made a change in the prior meaning of the Special Limitation Act. On the face of the Code, a change had been made, but the court held the prior law to be unchanged by the rearrangement of the sections. In the course of its opinion, the court referred to the rule of statutory construction applied by the majority in the case at bar, but stated that the rule is not controlling “where there are cogent reasons for believing that the letter does not fully and accurately disclose the intent.” The court then discussed various rules of statutory construction which are oftentimes applied to ascertain “legislative intent”, and finally concluded that in the case before it there was no necessity to rely upon them because “cogent evidence of the highest character, a legislative direction not to change or. vary the meaning of any existing law, and the declaration of the codifiers that they endeavored to obey that direction, conclusively demonstrate the legislative purpose and intent in adopting the Revision of 1915.” The same “cogent evidence” is before us in this case. In my opinion it “conclusively demonstrates the legislative purpose and intent” in adopting the Revision of 1953.
Atlantic Refining Co. v. Penn Seaboard Steel Corp., supra, and Nigro v. Flinn, supra, are not overruled by the majority of *148the court, although both decisions stand for the proposition that the “legislative intent” in the enactment of a Code may be ascertained by reference to the authority conferred upon the Code Commission and its report to the General Assembly. The two decisions are stated by the majority of the court to he examples of cases of ambiguity in the revision, itself, of inadvertent omission of words, or deletion of words thought to be superfluous, or the like. However, if language of a revision is plain and unambiguous on its face, there could be no justification, under the theory of the majority of the court, for the supplying of unintentional or mistaken omissons. Furthermore, at least three of the decisions of other jurisdictions cited with approval by the majority flatly preclude such inquiry. See Saslow v. Previti, 17 N. J. Misc. 29, 3 A. 2d 811; Vela v. Shacklett, Tex. Civ. App., 1 S. W. 2d 670; and Hamilton v. Rathbone, 175 U. S. 414, 20 S. Ct. 156, 44 L. Ed. 219.
. Finally, it is said by the majority that to refuse to give effect to the unambiguous language of 10 Del. C., § 3112(b) would be to reduce the 1953 Code to a mere compilation of prior statutes, and would be to defeat the principal legislative purpose of enacting the Code as positive law. This, however, is to substitute the judgment of the- court for that of the General Assembly, since the intention' of the General Assembly not to change existing law is as demonstrable as is its intention to enact a code of positive law. There is nothing which permits the conclusion that the General Assembly regarded its two-fold intention as separable. In the absence, of such indication, I do not think the courts should guess at what the General Assembly would have done had it been cognizant of all the facts.
I think Question No. 1 should have been answered in the negative.