Court Opinion

ID: 9591180
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:02:49.643692+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:01:08.024826
License: Public Domain

POFF, J.,
dissenting.
I cannot agree with the majority’s reasoning. In the construction of legislative enactments, the judicial function is to determine legislative intent and, insofar as it comports with constitutional principles, to give it effect.
I accept the several rules the majority invokes. True, courts “take the words as written to determine their meaning.” But numerals are part of the operative language of an appropriation act. If such language “lacks clearness and definiteness”, it is ambiguous and begs for clarification. When the legislature “lines out” one numeral and substitutes another, courts must presume that the modification was intentional and meaningful. If the modification “admits of being understood in more than one way”, the language of a legislative act is ambiguous and legislative intent is debatable.
One way in which the modification made here can be interpreted is that the legislators intended to reduce the total program funding by $3 million and to pro-rate that reduction among all the members of all the classes of beneficiaries. But it is equally reasonable to conclude that the legislative purpose was to apply the total reduction to a discrete class of recipients.
This inherent uncertainty is heightened by the number “4520100” which appears on the same line of type as the line drawn through the original appropriation figure. That number is a part of the language of the appropriation act. Appearing, as it does, juxtaposed against the modification, it is not superfluous. It cannot be ignored. It meant something to the authors who wrote it into the document, and the trial judge could not assume that it meant nothing to the legislators who adopted the act. Yet, in order to consider the issues joined and to “declare” legislative intent, he was required to decide what it meant.
His decision could be made only by resort to evidence of legislative history. The evidence adduced gave meaning to “words as written” which, otherwise, were bereft of meaning. Only then was he able to decide that the legislative intent underlying the modification was to apply the full amount of the budget reduction to a single class of beneficiaries.
*324I believe that the legislative language was ambiguous as that word is defined by the majority, that the evidence of legislative history resolved all doubt about the legislative purpose, and that the judgment should be affirmed.
CARRICO, C.J., joins in dissent.