Court Opinion

ID: 9848289
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:15:51.514328+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:11.256779
License: Public Domain

ANDERSON, PAUL H., Justice
(dissenting).
“The personal right to acquire property, which is a natural right, gives to property, when acquired, a right to protection, as a social right.” — James Madison, Speech in the Virginia Constitutional Convention, (Dec. 2, 1829), in 9 The Writings of James Madison 358, 361 (Gaillard Hunt ed. 1910).
I respectfully dissent. The ability of a government entity to seize a person’s private property is among the most awesome powers a government can wield, and as such, its use is generally disfavored. Because this power is so awesome and disfavored, we have in the past and must continue to narrowly construe statutes authorizing its use and resolve any doubts about its proper exercise in favor of the party who is subject to having his or her property seized. Further, given that the power to seize a person’s property carries with it the potential for misuse, courts of justice must carefully scrutinize how the government exercises that power.
In the case before us, I conclude that the legislature did not intend for an innocent joint owner to lose statutory protection against forfeiture of his motor vehicle, therefore I believe the majority’s interpretation of the relevant statute is wrong. Accordingly, I would affirm the result reached by the district court and the court of appeals and hold that the innocent owner defense is available to David Laase as a joint owner of the 2007 Chevrolet Tahoe seized by the police.
Minnesota’s DWI forfeiture statute allows some government agencies to seize a motor vehicle and divest the motor-vehicle owner of his interest when the vehicle has been used to commit certain designated offenses or has been used in conduct resulting in a designated license revocation. Minn.Stat. § 169A.63 (2008). Refusal to submit to a chemical test for intoxication is a criminal offense under Minn.Stat. § 169A.20 (2008) and a designated offense under the DWI forfeiture statute. Minn. Stat. § 169A.63, subd. 1(e)(2). A prosecuting authority may pursue forfeiture by filing a complaint against the motor vehicle used to commit the designated offense. Minn.Stat. § 169A.63, subd. 9(b) (2008).
The forfeiture statute contains certain protections for motor-vehicle owners who are not offenders themselves. A seized motor vehicle must be returned to its owner if that owner meets the requirements of Minn.Stat. § 169A.63, subd. 7(d) (2008), a provision known as the “innocent owner defense.” Minn.Stat. § 169A.63, subd. 9(g); see also Laase v. 2007 Chevrolet Tahoe, 755 N.W.2d 23, 24 (Minn.App.2008). Subdivision 7(d) requires a motor-vehicle owner to demonstrate by clear and convincing evidence that he lacked actual or constructive knowledge that the motor vehicle would be used or operated in any manner contrary to law or that the owner took reasonable steps to prevent the offender’s use of the motor vehicle. Under subdivision 7(d), if the offender is a family or household member of the owner and the offender has three or more prior driving convictions, the owner is presumed to know about the offender’s “vehicle use contrary to law.”
Minnesota Statutes § 169A.63, subd. 1(h), defines an “owner” as “a person legally entitled to possession, use, and control of a motor vehicle.” Under the statute, there is a rebuttable presumption that a person registered as the owner of a motor vehicle according to the records of the Department of Public Safety is the legal owner. Minn.Stat. § 169A.63, subd. *4421(h). The statute provides that “if a motor vehicle is owned jointly by two or more people, each owner’s interest extends to the whole of the vehicle and is not subject to apportionment.” Minn.Stat. § 169A.63, subd. 1(h).
I disagree with the majority’s new rule that all joint owners of a motor vehicle must be innocent in order for any owner to employ the innocent owner defense in Minn.Stat. § 169A.63, subd. 7(d). To arrive at this interpretation of the forfeiture statute, the majority employs a canon of statutory construction from Minn.Stat. § 645.08(2) (2008), which directs that “the singular includes the plural.” But, according to the statute, this canon of statutory construction should not govern if its application “involve[s] a construction inconsistent with the manifest intent of the legislature, or repugnant to the context of the statute.” Minn.Stat. § 645.08 (2008). By dissenting, I seek to appropriately follow the legislature’s instructions in section 645.08 to analyze whether the singular-includes-the-plural canon is repugnant to the context of the statute and inconsistent with the legislature’s manifest intent. Based on my analysis, I conclude that the singular-includes-the-plural canon should not govern.
I first address the repugnancy of the application of the singular-includes-the-plural canon to the DWI forfeiture statute. In determining whether the application of the singular-includes-the-plural canon is repugnant to the context of the DWI forfeiture statute, the first logical step is to identify the statute’s context. The statute at issue addresses DWI forfeiture and is a quasi-penal statute. An action for forfeiture is a civil in rem action and is independent of any criminal prosecution. Minn. Stat. § 169A.63, subd. 9(a). While we have said that Minnesota’s forfeiture statutes are remedial in nature and are to be liberally construed, we have also acknowledged that they are punitive. Riley v. 1987 Station Wagon, 650 N.W.2d 441, 443 (Minn.2002) (citing Austin v. United States, 509 U.S. 602, 618, 113 S.Ct. 2801, 125 L.Ed.2d 488 (1993)). In Austin, the United States Supreme Court said that “forfeiture generally and statutory in rem forfeiture in particular historically have been understood, at least in part, as punishment.” Austin, 509 U.S. at 618, 113 S.Ct. 2801. The Supreme Court has also stated that “[fjorfeitures are not favored; they should be enforced only when within both letter and spirit of the law.” United States v. One 1936 Model Ford V-8 De Luxe Coach, 307 U.S. 219, 226, 59 S.Ct. 861, 83 L.Ed. 1249 (1939), cited in Riley, 650 N.W.2d at 443. To the extent that the DWI forfeiture statute at issue “is, in part, ‘punishment’ and, therefore, disfavored generally, we strictly construe its language and resolve any doubt in favor of the party challenging it.” Riley, 650 N.W.2d at 443; see also Jacobson v. $55,900 in U.S. Currency, 728 N.W.2d 510, 521-22 (Minn.2007) (discussing disfavored status of civil forfeiture).
The context of the case before us involves a DWI forfeiture statute that contemplates both the ability of law enforcement agencies to seize and forfeit motor vehicles used in the commission of designated offenses and protection for innocent motor vehicle owners. Thus, the context within which we must conduct our analysis is a disfavored forfeiture statute that we must strictly construe which means that if we have any doubt about the application of the statute, that doubt is to be resolved in favor of joint owner David Laase. Here, some initial doubt with respect to the application of section 169A.63 exists because nowhere does the statute provide that the innocent owner defense is not available to a non-offending joint owner such as David Laase.
*443The next step in our analysis is to determine whether application of the singular-includes-the-plural canon is repugnant in this context. I view the majority’s use of the repugnancy standard as problematic because it is too rigorous. While repug-nancy may be a high hurdle, it is not as high a hurdle as the majority claims.
The only Minnesota case that the majority cites to support its interpretation of repugnancy is Farmers & Merchants State Bank of Pierz v. Bosshart, 400 N.W.2d 739 (Minn.1987). In Bosshart, we held that the application of the relevant canon in section 645.08 was repugnant to the context of the statute at issue, reasoning that two of the statute’s terms had “no logical relationship” to each other. 400 N.W.2d at 743. The majority characterizes our holding in Bosshart as recognizing the “heavy burden” of the repugnancy requirement. While we held that the lack of a logical relationship rendered the application of the canon repugnant in Bosshart, we did not define repugnancy or discuss the requirements of the repugnancy standard. Id. at 743-44. Moreover, we did not use the term “heavy burden” or “high hurdle.”
Further, the majority states that application of the singular-includes-the-plural canon is not “irreconcilable” with the rest of the DWI forfeiture statute and is therefore not repugnant. But repugnancy is broader than irreconcilability. The Iowa Supreme Court concluded the word repugnant “presents a high hurdle” and then further defined repugnancy, stating that in order to clear this “high hurdle” a canon’s application must be “inconsistent, irreconcilable, or in disagreement with the other language of a statute.” Baker v. Shields, 767 N.W.2d 404, 409 (Iowa 2009) (emphasis added). Courts, in foreign jurisdictions as well as our own, have interpreted repug-nancy to encompass a broad range of concepts including the lack of a logical relationship, inconsistency, and disagreement.
Here, the different provisions within the DWI forfeiture statute create doubt. Minnesota Statutes § 169A.63, subds. 6 and 7(a)(1), enable the forfeiture of a motor vehicle whose driver is convicted of a designated offense. Subdivision 7(d) prevents forfeiture of the motor vehicle of an innocent owner. Subdivision 1(h) states that each joint owner’s interest extends to the whole of the motor vehicle and is not subject to apportionment. Given the Supreme Court’s, and indeed our own, disfavor for civil forfeiture, I conclude that construing the DWI forfeiture statute in a way that resolves doubt in favor of the State and strips joint owners of the innocent owner defense is repugnant to the context of the statute.
Moreover, applying the singular-includes-the-plural canon to the word “owner” in subdivision 7(d) is inconsistent with, and therefore repugnant to, the rest of the language in 7(d). Subdivision 7(d) provides that an owner whose family member used or operated the motor vehicle in a manner contrary to law is able to use the innocent owner defense unless the family member has three or more prior impaired driving convictions. Substituting “owners” for “owner” in subdivision 7(d) strips the protection provided by section 7(d) from a large cross section of family members— those who jointly own a motor vehicle.
For all the reasons discussed above, I conclude that the application of the canon of construction from Minn.Stat. § 645.08(2) is repugnant to the context of Minn.Stat. § 169A.63, and therefore I would not read “owner” to mean “owners” as the majority does.
I also conclude that holding that “owner” means “owners” in subdivision 7(d) of the DWI forfeiture statute results in a construction that is inconsistent with the *444manifest intent of the legislature. The singular-includes-the-plural canon should not govern when the result of its use is the construction of a statute that is inconsistent with the legislature’s manifest intent. See Minn.Stat. § 645.08.
The DWI forfeiture statute defines “owner.” Under this definition, “if a motor vehicle is owned jointly by two or more people, each owner’s interest extends to the whole of the vehicle and is not subject to apportionment.” Minn.Stat. § 169A.63, subd. 1(h). This language suggests that the legislature intended to protect the innocent joint owner from losing his entire interest. Had the legislature intended that a joint owner should lose his entire interest in a forfeiture action involving a joint-owner offender, the legislature could easily have specifically stated as much. The legislature did not so state.
A second indication that the majority’s construction is inconsistent with the manifest intent of the legislature is the statute’s presumption regarding when an owner has actual or constructive knowledge of the offending family or household member’s motor-vehicle use. If the offender is a family or household member of the owner and has three or more prior driving convictions, the statute presumes the owner knows about the offender’s prior violations. Minn.Stat. § 169A.63, subd. 7(d). That the presumption is not triggered until the offender has three prior convictions is another sign that the legislature intended to extend the innocent owner defense to some family or household members. In some cases, the family or household members will include joint owners, as here. Yet nothing in subdivision 7(d) excludes joint owners from those qualifying as family or household members. Because the use of the singular-includes-the-plural canon from Minn.Stat. § 645.08 results in a construction that is inconsistent with the manifest intent of the legislature, I conclude that we should not apply it here.
Former United States Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story once said, “[a]nd it is no less true that personal security and private property rest entirely upon the wisdom, the stability, and the integrity of the courts of justice.” Joseph Story, 2 Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States 392 (Melville M. Bigelow ed., 5th ed. 1981) (1833). I agree with Justice Story’s observation on the role of courts of justice and believe we must fulfill that role here. Thus, I conclude that the court of appeals was correct in affirming the district court’s finding and would hold that David Laase is entitled to utilize the innocent owner defense and the return of his motor vehicle.