Court Opinion

ID: 9586095
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:07:08.145962+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:24:20.300233
License: Public Domain

MOORE, Justice:
I respectfully dissent. In my opinion, the minimum payroll exemption provision of S.C.Code § 42-1-360(2) is not ambiguous. It is the majority opinion which creates an ambiguity where none exists.
If a statute’s language is plain and unambiguous, and conveys a clear and definite meaning, there is no occasion for employing any rules of statutory interpretation and the Court has no right to look for or impose another meaning. Paschal v. State of South Carolina Election Comm’n, 317 S.C. 434, 454 S.E.2d 890 (1995). We need not “divine” intent when statutory language is clear and unambiguous, but instead need simply apply the statute’s literal language. Gaster v. Evatt, 326 S.C. 33, 483 S.E.2d 197, 198 (1997). Where the terms of the statute are clear, the Court must apply those terms according to their literal meaning. This Court cannot construe a statute without regard to its plain and ordinary meaning, and may not resort to subtle or forced construction in an attempt to limit or expand a statute’s scope. Paschal, supra. Furthermore, it would be improvident to judicially engraft extra requirements *563to legislation which is clear on its face. Berkebile v. Outen, 311 S.C. 50, 426 S.E.2d 760 (1993).
An employer without a payroll should not be prevented from claiming this exemption simply because he has no payroll rather than any amount less than $3,000. Pursuant to the majority’s opinion, a payroll of $1.00 the previous year would allow an employer to claim the exemption. Reading into the statute a requirement that there must have been some payroll the previous year is simply a forced construction of the statute and judicially engrafts extra requirements to this statute, which is clear on its face. Accordingly, I would reverse the Court of Appeals on this issue.