Court Opinion

ID: 9771899
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 16:58:22.630599+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:39.292638
License: Public Domain

OSBORNE, Judge
(dissenting)
The question presented to the court in this appeal is: “Is broadcasting a manufacturing or processing production operation” under the provisions of KRS 139.480(8) ? The lower court found that it was. I agree.
As early as 1886 in Covington Gas Light Company v. City of Covington, 84 Ky. 94, 8 KLR 442, this court recognized that a gas company was a manufacturing company when it took raw gas and made it suitable for domestic use. We likewise held in Ky. Electric Co. v. Buechel, 146 Ky. 660, 143 S.W. 58, that the generation of electricity was manufacturing because it involved transforming heat into electric power. In City of Louisville ex rel. v. Howard, 306 Ky. 687, 208 S.W.2d 522, we held that transformers which did nothing more than raise or lower voltage and transform AC current to DC current were machinery used for manufacturing. In the course of that opinion, we said:
“Applying the yardstick of our definition set out above to the raw unmeasured volume of. electrical energy as it comes out of the generating plant, we must regard it as a thing which is practically unsuitable for common use. Electrical companies do not invest millions of dollars in substations or transformers in the pursuit of a hobby. They make such investments because they are necessary to change generated electricity from a sort of uncivilised force, unfit to enter a home or place of business, into a subdued servant which may, through ‘transformer training’ become practically suitable for a common use.” (Emphasis added).
In the case before us on this appeal the broadcaster takes the raw material of light and sound at the location of the transmitter and by the injection of additional electrical current converts this light and sound into a radio wave which is transmitted to the user. It can not be argued with any degree of logic but what the broadcasting station manufactures radio waves which are placed upon the market for common use of all people within the range of the station. The Supreme Court of Alabama has previously *524met the exact problem which faces us today. It had in previous cases held that machinery used in the generating of electricity was used in the manufacturing process. When it was faced with the problem of whether the creation of radio waves was a manufacturing process, it held that it was for the very sound reason that it had previously held the generation of electricity was manufacturing. See State v. Television Corporation, 271 Ala. 692, 127 So.2d 603. The golden thread running through our decisions on the subject seems to be whether or not an unusable raw material is converted into a usable, salable product. Since we have previously held that the creation of electricity is manufacturing and the transforming of electricity is manufacturing it seems inescapable to me but that the creation of radio waves for the purpose of transmission upon the market is nothing less than the process of manufacturing.
For the foregoing reasons, I respectfully dissent.