Court Opinion

ID: 9764972
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 03:47:06.580998+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:02.532906
License: Public Domain

LAMBERT, Justice,
dissenting.
This Court’s 1987 opinion in Division of Driver Licensing v. Bergmann, Ky., 740 S.W.2d 948 (1987), held that the applicable period of drivers license revocation was not governed by characterization of the offense as a first, second or third offense, but by the actual number of convictions sustained during the relevant time period. By this approach, the offenses are simply counted to determine the applicable duration of license suspensión and the court’s characterization of the offense as first, second or third, etc., is irrelevant.
Evidently, the General Assembly was not satisfied with its enactment, or with our construction of it for in 1991 it amended the statute. By the amendment, language was added to KRS 189A.070 which provided that for violation of the underlying DUI statute, revocation shall be “by the court.” In at least three places in the amended version of KRS 189A.070, language such as “the court” or “by the court” was added. Despite this statutory change, the majority has held that the result is the same: to determine the number of convictions- for purposes of duration of suspension, the Division of Drivers’ Licensing merely counts the number of offenses. The language added to the statute in 1991 is thereby rendered meaningless.
A universally accepted rule of statutory construction is that the General Assembly is presumed to know the status of the law and the constructions placed on it by the courts. Baker v. White, 251 Ky. 691, 65 S.W.2d 1022 (1933); Commonwealth, Depart. of Banking & Secur. v. Brown, Ky., 605 S.W.2d 497 (1980). With enactment of a more recent statute, prior enactments on the same subject are presumed to have been in the mind of the Legislature, especially when there have been decisions of the Court relative thereto. Rose v. Turner, 301 Ky. 272, 191 S.W.2d 397 (1945). In construing a statute, a court must presume that the Legislature intended something by what it attempted to do. Grieb v. National Bond and Invest. Co., 264 Ky. 289, 94 S.W.2d 612 (1936). And courts must presume that the amendment of a statute was intended to change the law. Whitley County Board of Education v. Meadors, Ky., 444 S.W.2d 890 (1969); Blackburn v. Maxwell Co., Ky., 305 S.W.2d 112 (1957).
When the foregoing rules of statutory construction are applied here, the inescapable conclusion is that the General Assembly intended to overrule Bergmann and restore the traditional power of trial courts to characterize offenses. To conclude, as has the majority, that the addition of the three words “by the court” results in no change in the law violates the most fundamental rules of statutory construction and destroys legislative power to bring about change. To explain away the addition to the statute, the majority engages in sophistry by saying this merely reiterates the power of trial courts to render final judgments, hardly a debatable proposition.
The bottom line of this case is that we decided Bergmann, the Legislature changed the statute, but Bergmann remains the law.