Court Opinion

ID: 9789084
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:27:44.059785+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:19.435180
License: Public Domain

OPALA, J.,
I 65 concurring in result in
Part I of the court's opinion and concurring in its remainder
No literal meaning can ever be ascribed to a statutory declaration that is in patent discord with legal reality and its consequences. Instead of attributing to the statute's words an intention of effecting an *1043unlawful divestiture of public money, we will, as we must, interpret them as no more than impressing the entire fund with a trust dedicated to the purpose for which it was created, permitting no diversion to anything else. When the statute's text is so understood, the title to the fund remains unchanged, but its assets, now firmly committed to a single purpose, stand impervious to legislative tinkering.1
T 66 WINCHESTER, C.J., Disqualified.

. A long-standing "rule of statutory construction is that the manifest intent of the legislature will prevail over the literal import of words." DeAnnexation of Certain Real Property from the City of Seminole, 2004 OK 60, 102 P.3d 120, 129.