Court Opinion

ID: 9563476
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:40:12.131925+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:17:52.140902
License: Public Domain

Hale, J.
(dissenting)—Defendant was charged with and convicted of fraudulently obtaining $219.99 worth of goods and merchandise from the Royal Motor Inn. The court now holds that, because the named victim is the Royal Motor Inn, the crime, regardless of the amount obtained, cannot be deemed a felony but must be regarded only as a gross misdemeanor under the innkeeper’s statute (RCW 19.48.110), or as a misdemeanor under RCW 9.45.040.
In reaching this conclusion, the court fails .to apply that most fundamental rule of statutory construction: to harmonize, wherever possible, statutes which seemingly have some areas of conflict or overlap so that the intention of the legislature may first be ascertained and then applied. Beach v. Board of Adjustment, 73 Wn.2d 343, 438 P.2d 617 (1968); State v. Kristofferson, 58 Wn.2d 317, 362 P.2d 596 (1961); 82 C.J.S. Statutes § 369 (1953).
RCW 19.48.110 makes it a gross misdemeanor to defraud an innkeeper. In enacting it, I do not think that the legislature intended to declare an open bunco season on innkeepers, hotels and restaurateurs. To the contrary, since those particular businesses are markedly susceptible to fraud and swindle and must irretrievably part with their wares and services without retaining a security interest and before payment, I think the legislature intended to afford them an added protection. I am unable to reach the bizarre conclusion that, when it comes to defrauding or swindling an innkeeper the sky is the limit, and no matter how large the take the legislature intended that the offense never amounts to more than a gross misdemeanor.
The problem is essentially one of statutory construction. Where two statutes dealing with the same subject matter to be given effect must be read in pari materia, the specific ordinarily will control the general, but that rule applies *625only where the two cannot logically exist side-by-side. Repeals by implication are disfavored; the court is obliged to give effect to both statutes if it is at all possible to harmonize them. The correct solution then to this case—in applying the specific as opposed to the general—is that the innkeeper statute should be controlling only in cases where its language—and its language alone—governs, and the general grand larceny statute should be given effect in all other situations. Thus, if an innkeeper or restaurateur is swindled out of less than $75, the offense is cognizable under the innkeeper’s statute; if the amount exceeds $75, then it is grand larceny. The added or additional element raising the crime from the gross misdemeanor of defrauding an innkeeper under RCW 19.48.110 and RCW 9.45.040, to grand larceny under RCW 9.54.010 and RCW 9.54.090, is that the value of the goods and services exceeds the petit larceny maximum of $75.
In State v. Becker, 39 Wn.2d 94, 234 P.2d 897 (1951), upon which this court’s opinion appears to depend, we held that unlawfully obtaining old age assistance by means of false and fraudulent representation in excess of the petit larceny amount did not amount to grand larceny under the general criminal statute despite the amount unlawfully obtained. The offense, we thought, fell within the public assistance laws concerning the elderly which made it a misdemeaner to obtain public assistance by such false and fraudulent means. But the similarity there with respect to overlapping statutes—an almost universal problem in these days of cyclopedic legislation—to the present case is quite superficial, for in that situation, the state had enacted a comprehensive code establishing and maintaining the old age assistance system—a code governing the state department of public assistance, the state treasury, and the recipients of old age assistance alike. That case held simply that a comprehensive reenactment of the public assistance laws applicable to senior citizens and affecting the public treasury, but leaving unchanged the misdemeanor section *626on penalties for fraud, evinced a legislative intent to keep such fraud and misrepresentation a misdemeanor only. This court simply discovered an intention in the legislature to make senior citizen applicants subject only to misdemeanor penalties when committing fraud in seeking old age assistance. The decision did not depart from but instead applied the basic principle that it is the duty of the courts to ascertain and then give effect to the intention of the legislature.
No such legislative intention can be found in the innkeeper statutes. We have here no comprehensive statutory scheme regulating the operation of hotels, innkeepers, restaurants and guests alike nor controlling the state treasury as it affects them. There is an absence of regulations controlling the conduct or prescribing the means and methods of those aspiring to be patrons of hotels and restaurants. Nothing about the innkeeper statute shows a legislative intention to oust the general criminal code as it relates to innkeepers generally, nor bespeaks a legislative intention to vacate the general larceny statutes particularly as they affect the act of bilking an innkeeper or restaurant proprietor of food, lodging and other related services. In short, the statute does not attempt to regulate a business or establish a class and legislate with respect to it. It merely defines different crimes and prescribes different punishments therefor.
The various criminal codes of this country are replete with overlaps and redundancies. To cite but a few, 18 U.S.C. § 1707 (1970) is one of 44 sections defining criminal acts committed in relation to the post office and postal service. It is part of an overall scheme regulating the conduct of postal business. In many cases, however, the general statute governing thefts of government property as defined in 18 U.S.C. § 641 (1966) is applied instead in cases involving thefts of stamps and money. Conerly v. United States, 350 F.2d 679 (9th Cir. 1965); United States v. Leeman, 287 F. Supp. 279 (Neb. 1967), aff’d, 398 F.2d 835 (8th Cir. 1968), cert. denied, 393 U.S. 1035, 21 L. Ed. 2d 580, 89 *627S. Ct. 653 (1969); United States v. Pursley, 431 F.2d 961 (5th Cir. 1970), cert. denied, 400 U.S. 879, 27 L. Ed. 2d 117, 91 S. Ct. 123 (1970).
State v. Marcus, 104 Ariz. 231, 450 P.2d 689 (1969), affords another example. There the conviction of a licensed physician for unlawfully dispensing narcotics was held good under the general narcotics statute although conceivably the charge could have been brought under the section regulating the sale of narcotics by physicians. In People v. Cohen, 12 Cal. App. 3d 298, 90 Cal. Rptr. 612 (1970), the statute regulating the insurance industry made it a misdemeanor to submit false claims to an insurance company. The accused, an attorney, was nevertheless held properly charged and convicted of grand theft under the general criminal code on the theory that the submission of the false claim constituted a misdemeanor, but collecting an amount on such false claim in excess of the petit larceny maximum constituted the felony of grand theft.
The rationale of these cases is that, if the language of either statute is sufficiently certain to avoid the bane of vagueness, that is, can be understood by a person of reasonable and ordinary understanding, then the court must ascertain and apply the legislative intent. Wherever possible, the court should harmonize and reconcile the seeming conflicts so that all sections can be given effect where applicable.
The legislature, I think, made its purpose clear. It did not intend to make light of hotels, innkeepers and restaurateurs but instead to afford those businesses an added protection from fraud and swindle. It intended, I think, that if one operates a bunco against them so as to deprive them of their wares and services in excess of the statutory petit larceny amount, this would constitute the felony of grand larceny.
Stafford, J., concurs with Hale, J.
Petition for rehearing denied February 15,1973.