Court Opinion

ID: 9547380
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:46:38.866962+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:17:40.737774
License: Public Domain

SUMMERS,
Justice, dissenting:
Before the court is an ambiguous statute which therefore requires construction. In the absence of ambiguity the courts will regard a statute as meaning what it says, and look no further.1 But an ambiguity exists when a legislature enacts two or more provisions which appear to be inconsistent.2
Consider the statute in its essence:

§ 180.63 Increase to basic salary ...

[T]he salary of all officers ... may be increased
... according to the following scale:
A. To the basic salary:
1. Add_ (a figure based on net valuation.)
B. And also the salary of each county officer shall be additionally increased.... (by a figure based on population or service load.) (emphasis added)
If “may” is given its ordinary, permissive meaning, then Paragraph B, requiring that “also” the salary be “additionally” increased, renders the statute ambiguous and requires our construction.
The majority opinion correctly states that the goal of statutory construction is to follow the intent of the legislature. Let us then scrutinize the problem section in light of the legislature’s mandate that the salary statutes (§§ 180.58-180.68) be read together as a “comprehensive salary code”.3
Section 180.58 sets the purpose:
“The purpose of this act is to codify and revise the laws of the state relating to salaries and wages of county officers and their deputies and employees, and to establish said salaries and wages by general law applicable throughout the state under a uniform schedule fixing such salaries and wages_ The Legislature has determined that the foregoing bases of such schedule gradations generally are cognate to the combination of the following factors: (a) The net valuation of all taxable property of the county ... and (b) the population of the county, hereinafter referred to as the “service load”; and that the application of said factors properly establishes a rational and relevant formula for uniformity of salaries and wages and of future increases and decreases thereof.” (emphasis added)
Section 180.64B imposes the duty:
“The above salaries shall be paid from annual appropriations made from the general fund of the county for such purpose, and it is hereby made the mandatory duty of the county commissioners and the excise board that such funds be appropriated and paid.”
The majority has concluded that the use of “may” in the introductory part of Section 180.63 imbues the excise board with discretion to pay or not pay under Paragraph A. From this position I must respectfully dissent.
*935First, “may” has on occasion been construed by this court to mean “shall”.4 In Bartlesville Water Co. v. Brann, 166 Okl. 251, 27 P.2d 345, 347 (1933) we said
“The excise board, in refusing to approve ' the estimate upon the showing made was not exercising any discretionary power vested in it by law but such act on its part was an arbitrary exercise of power. We do not agree that the word “may” in the second subdivision of Section 12680, supra, was intended to give any discretionary power to the excise board in allowing supplemental appropriations when the right to the same is fully shown.”5
Particularly will “may” be construed as “shall” when to hold otherwise would defy fundamental logic.6
There is a line of cases holding that when a power is given to public officers and the public interest or individual rights call for its exercise, the language used, though permissive in form, is in fact mandatory. What the officer is empowered to do for a third person, the law requires shall be done. The power is given, not for benefit of the public officer, but for the third person. The intent of the legislature was not to devolve a mere discretion, but to impose an absolute duty.7
“May” therefore is subject to more than one meaning in certain cases even where there is no ambiguity. Here we have ambiguity. What was the legislative intent? If they had intended to use “may” as held by the majority it is impossible to conceive why in Paragraph B. they would say:
“And also the salary of each county officer shall be additionally increased....”
Surely “additionally increased” means “in addition to the increase given in Paragraph A, above.” Surely it indicates an intent to provide an increase based on population in addition to the increase already given on net valuation. Unless there was to be an increase under Paragraph A, the language used in Paragraph B makes no sense at all, and in fact would “defy fundamental logic”.
Finally, the section on legislative purpose 8 gives no hint that increases based on “service load” (Paragraph B) are preferred to or treated differently than those based on “net valuation” (Paragraph A). It pronounces that together
“... the application of said factors properly establishes a rational and relevant formula for uniformity of salaries and wages.... ”
The stated purpose of the act is
“... to establish said salaries and wages by general law applicable throughout the state under a uniform schedule fixing such salaries_”9 (emphasis added)
Allowing excise boards discretion in granting raises — as much as $6500 per officer in this McCurtain County case — does little to establish uniformity of salaries throughout the state. It is doubtful that the legislature intended to defeat its own stated purpose.
I would affirm the trial court.
I am authorized to state that DOOLIN, V.C.J., and HODGES, J., concur with the views expressed herein.

.Ford v. Okla.Tax Comm., 285 P.2d 436 (Okl.1955).

.State ex rel. Rucker v. Tapp, 380 P.2d 260 (Okl.1963).

.19 O.S.1981 § 180.67(a).

. Excise Bd. v. Bd. of Education, 168 Okl. 216, 34 P.2d 267 (1934).

. Quoted with approval in State v. Morley, 168 Okl. 259, 34 P.2d 258 (1934).

. Assoc, of Classroom Teachers of Oklahoma City, Inc. v. Independent Sch. Dist. # 89, 540 P.2d 1171 (Okl.1975).

. Jordan v. Davis, 10 Okl. 329, 61 P. 1063 (1900). Here the statute read:
"No certificate shall be of force except in the county where it is issued: provided that the County Superintendent may indorse unexpired first grade certificate issued in other counties on payment of the fee of |1.00, which certificate shall thereby be valid....” (emphasis added)
The court held "may” imposed an absolute duty on the Superintendent to indorse proper certificates with no discretion.
See Annotation, 103 A.L.R. 812, for other decisions.

. 19 O.S.1981 § 180.58.

. Id.