Court Opinion

ID: 9851645
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:16:42.414004+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:09.641096
License: Public Domain

Townsend, J.,
dissenting. I think the plain meaning of that part of section 3 (c) 2 of the act of 1951 (Ga. L. 1951, pp. 360, 365) which reads, “The terms ‘sale at retail’ . . . shall not include . . . industrial materials . . . used directly in the . . . converting or processing of articles ... for resale,” is to include all industrial materials which, while they do not become component parts of the finished product, are applied directly against or in contact with the raw material in order to convert or process it. The mere fact that heat is applied at the same time, so that the gas, while in such contact with the clay, becomes ignited and itself consumed by chemical change, does not change the direct use of such gas to an indirect use, as the flaming gas is in direct contact with the material and is the agent of its conversion and processing.
It is axiomatic that the cardinal rule of construction is to ascertain the intention of the legislature. Foster v. Vickery, 202 Ga. 55, 60 (42 S. E. 2d 117). One unversed in the subtleties of the law might suppose that the proper manner of ascertaining such intent would be to consult the official subsequent declaration of that body, which, at the following term, passed an act (Ga. L. 1953, p. 194), "to provide for a clarification of the original intent of the General Assembly that there shall not be included within the meaning of the term ‘industral materials’, natural or artificial gas, oil, gasoline, electricity, solid fuel, ice or other materials used for heat, light, power and refrigeration.” Such, however, is not the case, for the subsequent act must result in "either a new rule or a judicial construction of an existing *244rule. If the former, it is . . . without retrospective effect, and, if the latter, it is the exercise of a power which belongs to the legislature of no free country—which most assuredly does not belong to the legislature of Georgia.” Wilder v. Lumpkin, 4 Ga. 208, 211. It will not be presumed that the legislature attempted illegally to invade the judicial field. Accordingly, the plain implication is that, when the wording of section 3 (c) 2 was changed in 1953 to delete from the exemptions the words “industrial materials . . . used directly in the . . . converting or processing of articles,” and substituted in lieu thereof “industrial materials . . . coated upon or impregnated into the product,” it set up a new rule, regardless of its purported clarification of the original rule. Thus, viewing the act of 1953 through the back door, so to speak, instead of admitting it into the councils of judicial construction, we conclude from it only that the legislature, realizing it had enacted a statutory rule other than that which it had desired, in 1953 enacted a new statutory rule more in accordance with the purpose of the act as a whole. From what the legislature did, rather than from what it stated at a later date it intended to do, must the courts arrive at legislative intention. Applying this rule, it is clear that in 1952, when the tax for which refund was claimed was paid, gas, electricity, and other similar products, when used as industrial materials directly in the conversion or processing of raw materials, were exempt from the sales tax, and that the judgment of the trial court in this case was correct.