Court Opinion

ID: 9515135
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 22:54:05.134477+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:06:25.386909
License: Public Domain

AMUNDSON, Retired Justice
(dissenting).
[¶ 22.] In this case, clearly the criminal action against Soulek had concluded. The criminal case Cri. # 0011625, the State of South Dakota v. Donald Lee Soulek, was filed on April 12, 2000. Soulek pleaded guilty and was sentenced on April 19, 2000. At that time the status of this criminal case was listed as terminated. Then more than eight months after Soulek pleaded guilty, the State filed an order to show cause in civil case Civ. # 00-3583, State of South Dakota v. I-90 Truck Haven Service, Inc., Licensee, seeking a civil fine against Truck Haven.
[¶ 23.] SDCL 35Mr-78.2 provides that “the state’s attorney ... may as part of any proceeding against the person making the sale request that the court require the licensee to pay a fine in accordance with §§ 35-4-78.1 to 35M-78.4, inclusive.” Black’s Law Dictionary defines proceeding as the progression of a lawsuit “including all acts and events between the time of commencement to the entry of judgment.” 1221 (7th ed. 1999). Here when the state brought this action against Truck Haven, it was certainly not part of the “same proceeding” against Soulek since criminal judgment had already been entered.
[¶ 24.] We should follow the “paramount rule of statutory construction and simply declare “what the legislature said, rather than what the courts think it should have said.’ ” Goetz v. State, 2001 SD 138 at ¶ 20, 636 N.W.2d 675, 682 (2001). Statutory construction as established by the precedence of the Court clearly provides that these two actions should have been brought in the same proceeding and they were not. Therefore I would affirm the trial court.