Court Opinion

ID: 9566014
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:31:53.670246+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:13.266981
License: Public Domain

HARTZ, Judge (dissenting). I respectfully dissent. On one point I disagree not only with the majority, but also with both parties. I do not believe that the language “completely and opaquely covered” is plain and unambiguous. For language to be plain and unambiguous, it must bear only one meaning no matter what the context. As I have recently learned, what may appear at first and second glances to be plain and unambiguous may turn out to have a different meaning when one carefully examines the context. See Coslett v. Third St. Grocery, No. 14,912 (N.M.Ct.App. Mar. 21, 1994). Apparently the New Mexico Supreme Court has recently had a similar experience. See State ex rel. Helman v. Gallegos, 117 N.M. 346, 871 P.2d 1352 (N.M.1994). In this case it does not require any great effort to detect ambiguity in the language of the ordinance. There are at least two common meanings of “cover” when applied to the human body. When one wants to “cover” a pimple or blemish, the usual practice is to apply makeup or the like. But that is hardly what a parent means in instructing a child to “cover up.” Ordinarily, when one speaks of covering the human body to protect a person’s modesty, “cover” means “cloak.” A standard thesaurus lists “cloak” as a synonym for the verb “cover.” Roget’s International Thesaurus, entry 228.19, at 141 (4th ed. 1977). One must therefore look to the context of the language of the ordinance. The apparent purpose of the “completely and opaquely covered” requirement is to reduce the erotic message. Cloaking the area will accomplish that purpose. Applying flesh-colored theatrical makeup will not. Hence, I agree with the City’s construction of the language of the ordinance as requiring “some sort of clothing.” To be sure, as the majority points out, the ordinance could have been written more precisely to reflect the City’s intent. Yet, it could also have been written more precisely to convey the construction adopted by the majority. The role of the courts is not to penalize legislative bodies by adopting perverse constructions of imprecise language; our task is to do our best to discern the meaning of the words used by the legislature. Although the majority opinion is not the first opinion to say “the legislature could have done better,” I cannot recall an occasion on which that observation advanced the analysis in construing a civil statute, unless the court had adopted a dear-statement rule, see generally Astoria Fed. Sav. & Loan Ass’n v. Solimino, 501 U.S. 104, 109, 111 S.Ct. 2166, 2170, 115 L.Ed.2d 96 (1991). Supporting the City’s construction of the ordinance is the general proposition that courts should defer to an administrative agency’s authoritative interpretation of its own regulations. As stated in a leading treatise: The powerful effect courts give most agency interpretations of the agency’s own regulations is based on common sense. The agency typically is in a superior position to determine what it intended when it issued a rule, how and when it intended the rule to apply, and the interpretation of the rule that makes the most sense given the agency’s purposes in issuing the rule. Courts have significant institutional disadvantages in attempting to resolve these critical issues. 1 Kenneth C. Davis & Richard J. Pierce, Jr., Administrative Law Treatise § 6.10, at 282 (3d ed. 1994) [hereinafter Davis Treatise]. A formal, official decision by the body that enacted the law is readily distinguishable from a post-enactment affidavit by one member of that body. Thus, the above-quoted statement in the Davis Treatise has broad support despite the wide acceptance of the proposition that post-enactment affidavits should not be considered in determining legislative intent, see United States Brewers Ass’n v. New Mexico Dep’t of Alcoholic Beverage Control, 100 N.M. 216, 218-19, 668 P.2d 1093, 1095-96 (1983), appeal dismissed, 465 U.S. 1093, 104 S.Ct. 1581, 80 L.Ed.2d 115 (1984). Indeed, one basis for the distinction between affidavits by individuals and official actions by the legislative body is noted in United States Brewers Ass’n itself, which said: “Testimony of individual legislators or others as to happenings in the Legislature is incompetent, since that body speaks solely through its concerted action as shown by its vote.” Id. (emphasis deleted) (quoting Haynes v. Caporal, 571 P.2d 430, 434 (Okla.1977)). The proposition stated in the Davis Treatise should also apply when a city council interprets an ordinance it has adopted. In Bienz v. City of Dayton, 29 Or.App. 761, 566 P.2d 904, 918 (1977), the court wrote: In administrative law we have generally held that it is the responsibility of the agency entrusted with the administration of a statute, rather than the courts, to fill the statutory interstices____ The same rule should apply in construing municipal ordinances. The city council is not only charged with administering the ordinance, but is the legislative authority from which the ordinance originates and thus is in a superior position to discern legislative intent. Here, we have an ambiguity in the ordinance. We defer to the city’s resolution of that ambiguity where as here the city’s construction is not contrary to the express terms of the ordinance. Accord Clark v. Jackson County, 813 Or. 508, 836 P.2d 710 (1992); see Hyde v. Taos Mun.-County Zoning Auth., 113 N.M. 29, 30, 822 P.2d 126, 127 (Ct.App.), cert. denied, 113 N.M. 16, 820 P.2d 1330 (1991). Agreeing with this view, I would defer to the City Council’s interpretation of the ordinance at issue here. Deference is particularly appropriate in this case. The City Council was interpreting an ordinance it had enacted only two-and-one-half years earlier and was reaffirming a construction of the word “covered” that had been consistently applied by the zoning manager in construing the ordinance’s predecessor.