Court Opinion

ID: 9596282
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:47:57.587167+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:01:34.700075
License: Public Domain

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE PRINGLE
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur in Sections I, II of the majority opinion. I respectfully dissent to Section III of the majority opinion.
As the majority opinion points out, we have in many previous decisions interpreted 1967 Perm. Supp., C.R.S. 1963, 66-8-17 to permit the introduction of a death certificate in such a manner as to hold competent the portion of the death certificate today interdicted by the majority opinion. National Farmers Life Insurance Company v. Norwood, 147 Colo. 283, 363 P.2d 681, is an example of these cases. In that case the specific clause of the death certificate now held inadmissable by the majority opinion was held to be properly admitted.
I am firmly committed to the philosophy that when this court interprets a statute and sets forth its meaning in clear and unequivocal terms and the legislature over a period of years does not change the statute, then the legislature has *115expressed its agreement that the intent and the meaning of the statute is as the Supreme Court has interpreted it. That interpretation, in my view, then becomes as much a part of the statute as if the legislature had expressly stated it within the statute itself. Under such circumstances I would not invade the province of the legislature and by judicial act, change the intent and meaning of the legislation even though I might have ruled differently were it a matter of first impression.
I am fortified in this conclusion by the fact that the legislature has expressly enacted legislation to express its true intent in several instances when it felt that the meaning attributed to the statute by the court was not the meaning which legislature intended. See for example 1971 Perm. Supp., 81-2-9(3) and the editor’s note following the amendment.
I am authorized to say that Mr. Justice Kelley concurs in this opinion.