Court Opinion

ID: 9848291
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:15:51.518975+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:11.269239
License: Public Domain

PAGE, Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. The court reaches its result by applying the statutory construction principle that “the singular includes the plural; and the plural, the singular.” Supra at 435 (citing Minn.Stat. § 645.08(2) (2008)). But it does so in the very place that the legislature instructs that it not be used: when its use “would involve a construction inconsistent with the manifest intent of the legislature” or is “repugnant to the context of the statute.” Minn.Stat. § 645.08 (2008). In the process, the court also violates another principle of statutory construction: that “the legislature intends the entire statute to be effective and certain.” Minn.Stat. § 645.17(2) (2008). In contrast, construing “owner” in the operative statute, Minn.Stat. § 169A.63 (2008), as singular rather than plural is consistent with both of these principles.
*445Minnesota Statutes §■ 169A.63 allows for the forfeiture of a motor vehicle that has been used in the commission of one of a list of designated offenses, including driving while intoxicated. However, under section 169A.63, subdivision 7(d), the vehicle is not subject to forfeiture if “its owner” can demonstrate by clear and convincing evidence that “the owner” did not have actual or constructive knowledge that the vehicle would be used or operated contrary to law:
A motor vehicle is not subject to forfeiture under this section if its owner can demonstrate by clear and convincing evidence that the owner did not have actual or constructive knowledge that the vehicle would be used or operated in any manner contrary to law or that the owner took reasonable steps to prevent use of the vehicle by the offender. If the offender is a family or household member of the owner and has three or more prior impaired driving convictions, the owner is presumed to know of any vehicle use by the offender that is contrary to law.
The court applies the principle that “the singular includes the plural” to construe subdivision 7(d) to require that all of the vehicle’s owners be able to demonstrate by clear and convincing evidence that none of them knew the vehicle would be used to commit the designated offense. In other words, the court construes subdivision 7(d) to read as follows:
A motor vehicle is not subject to forfeiture under this section only if every owner can demonstrate by clear and convincing evidence that each owner did not have actual or constructive knowledge that the vehicle would be used or operated in any manner contrary to law or that each ovmer took reasonable steps to prevent use of the vehicle by the offender. If the offender is a family or household member of the “owners” and has three or more prior impaired driving convictions, each owner is presumed to know of any vehicle use by the offender that is contrary to law.
(Emphasis added.) Read as the court does, that is a burden that Mr. and Mrs. Laase cannot meet here, because Mrs. Laase was driving the vehicle while intoxicated. We should not read into the statute language that the legislature has left out, either purposely or inadvertently. Wallace v. Comm’r of Taxation, 289 Minn. 220, 230, 184 N.W.2d 588, 594 (1971).
The legislature has provided a definition of “owner” to be used in section 169A.63. For purposes of section 169A.63:
“Owner” means a person legally entitled to possession, use, and control of a motor vehicle, including a lessee of a motor vehicle if the lease agreement has a term of 180 days or more. There is a rebuttable presumption that a person registered as the owner of a motor vehicle according to the records of the Department of Public Safety is the legal owner. For purposes of this section, if a motor vehicle is owned jointly by two or more people, each owner’s interest extends to the whole of the vehicle and is not subject to apportionment.
Minn.Stat. § 169A.63, subd. 1(h). The last sentence of subdivision 1(h) can have no purpose but to instruct that, in section 169A.63, the principle that the singular includes the plural does not apply and each owner is to be considered individually.
I would construe the word “owner” to refer to each individual owner throughout section 169A.63. Thus, under subdivision 7(d), a vehicle is not subject to forfeiture if any of its owners can demonstrate that he or she, individually, did not know the vehicle would be used contrary to law. Similarly,- under subdivision 7(d), it is up to each of the owners to demonstrate that he *446or she “took reasonable steps to prevent use of the vehicle by the offender.” An owner that can make the required showing cannot be divested of his or her interest in the vehicle, which subdivision 1(h) instructs extends to the whole of the vehicle. Because Mr. Laase made the required showing, I would hold that his interest in the vehicle is not subject to forfeiture.
I therefore dissent.