Court Opinion

ID: 9771302
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 16:38:48.564571+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:28.290453
License: Public Domain

Tom Glaze, Justice, concurring. While I join the majority, I cannot agree that provisions (a) and (b) of section 13 of amendment 60 are clear and unambiguous. In my view, no one can read the language contained in these two provisions without being confronted with a genuine dilemma as to what was intended. I write this concurrence to attempt to illustrate how this court should have construed this ambiguous provision. Since after utilizing the proper rules of construction the same result would be reached as in Bishop, I am obliged to join the majority in affirming our previous holding. As pointed out in Justice Hickman’s dissent, the amendment can be read two ways: (1) consumer loans are only limited by the lawful maximum rate of 17 % interest under provision (b); or (2) consumer loans are additionally entitled to any protections afforded in provision (a) which provide for a maximum rate of 5 % interest above the federal discount rate. As is often the case with newly enacted statutes and constitutional provisions, a language problem arose when construing and applying amendment 60, and this court was, and again is, called on to resolve the existing ambiguity and to determine the constitutional intent of the amendment. Conceding that an ambiguity is inherent in the wording of amendment 60 does not in any way decide the issue before us. Such a concession does, however, compel a further duty by this court to analyze and construe amendment 60 to determine its intent rather than merely saying, as the court did in Bishop, that the “plain meaning” of the language in amendment 60 requires consumer loans to be subject to the discount rate formula in provision (a). In the present case, the appellant, in an effort to provide insight as to the intent of the drafters of amendment 60, proffered testimony by certain respected bankers, a state senator and an economist. However, none of the proffered testimony is admissible. We have stated numerous times that courts may look to legislative journals and public documents where there is ambiguity, in order to find the intention of the legislature. See, e.g., Wiseman v. Madison Cadillac Co., 191 Ark. 1021, 88 S.W.2d 1007 (1935). But this court has never held that a senator or representative may testify giving his or her opinion on the subject; in fact, the Wiseman court made it very clear that extraneous aids were not admissible when they merely encompassed individual views regarding legislative intent. The court further said, “So in ascertaining the meaning of a statute the court will not be governed or influenced by the views or opinions of any or all of the members of the legislature, or its legislative committees or any other person.” Id. at 1025, 88 S.W.2d at 1009. The appellant, in our case, is apparently well read on the dissenting opinion in Bishop', however, in my view that opinion served only to mislead its readers by suggesting that the use of extrinsic evidence is a permissible method to determine the meaning of amendment 60. In suggesting that evidence from the draftsmen of amendment 60 should be admissible, the dissenters cited Sutherland Statutory Construction, but neither Sutherland nor the cases cited in the Bishop dissent permit that conclusion. For example, in Railroad Roofing v. Financial Fire & Casualty Company, 171 N.J. Super. 375, 409 A.2d 300 (1979), the court quoted the following from Sutherland'. In recognition that there is no necessary correlation between what the draftsman of the text of the bill understands it to mean and what members of the enacting legislature understand, and that the intent of the legislature is the determining consideration as compared to the views of the draftsman, their views are not generally considered proper grounds on which to base the interpretation of an act, in this country any more than in England. However, if the draftsman’s views were clearly and prominently communicated to the legislature when the bill was being considered for enactment, so as to give reason to believe that the legislators’ understanding of the bill would have been influenced by the draftman’s communicated views and so as to be visible to others who are concerned to understand the meaning of the act, there is reason to invoke an exception of the general rule and attach weight to the draftman’s views. The court in Railroad Roofing went on to conclude that the extrinsic information offered there had not been clearly and prominently communicated to the legislature. The Bishop dissent also cites American Waterways Operators, Inc. v. United States, 386 F. Supp. 799 (D.D.C. 1974), where the court considered the construction placed upon an act by the administrators who participated in its drafting and who made their views known to Congress as shown by the Senate debates on the conference committee report. In Congress, official verbatim records of committee meetings and debates are kept, and in the federal courts statements of members of the committee or of interested parties at the hearing have been considered as aids in determining the legislative intent. See Sutherland Stat. Const. § 48.10 (4th Ed). However, the Arkansas General Assembly, unlike Congress, does not maintain a record of its proceedings, and therefore has no record from which courts could ascertain legislative intent. In sum, the American Waterways case is in no way helpful in resolving the issue involving amendment 60 in Bishop or in the present case. In construing an ambiguous provision, this court should focus on voters’ intent and not the intent of legislators or vested-interest groups. We have held that in construing the provisions of the constitution we endeavor to effectuate as nearly as possible the intent of the people in passing the measure, and if necessary as a means of attaining that end, a liberal interpretation will be warranted as it may be ascertained from the language used. See Knox v. Williamson, 241 Ark. 455, 408 S.W.2d 501 (1966); Raney v. Raulston, 238 Ark. 875, 385 S.W.2d 651 (1965). The court now faces the problem of how to determine the voters’ intent. The dissenters in Bishop would have us believe that we should consider newspaper articles and media broadcasts as evidence allowable under A.R.E. Rule 803(24) to ascertain the voters’ intent. Again, the Bishop dissent wrongly cites Arkansas cases for the proposition that liberal views of evidence should be taken in statutory construction. That proposition has never been the law in Arkansas, and there is no case authority for allowing newspaper articles and media broadcasts into evidence to show the voters’ intent under the hearsay exception, Rule 803(24). In determining the meaning of section 13 of amendment 60, we must look to the amendment itself and its ballot title to ascertain the voters’ intent. The ballot title stated the following: An amendment to section 13 of article XIX of the Constitution of the State of Arkansas to control interest rates and set the penalty for violation thereof. From the above language, the voters were asked to control Arkansas’s interest rates. Arkansas’s prior constitutional provision provided for a maximum rate of interest of 10 % regardless of whether a loan was commercial or a consumer one. All parties agree that Arkansas’s new amendment limits consumer loans to a maximum interest rate of 17 %. The question, however, is did the voters intend that they should benefit from the control regulation in provision (a) of the amendment when that federal reserve discount rate affords a lower interest rate than the 17 % amount provided in provision (b) ? Quite clearly, it would seem reasonable to apply such a construction to the meaning of provision (a) not only because voters, as consumers, would normally be expected to limit or control the amount of interest they would pay on a loan, but also because the language in (a) states in effect that in any contract, the maximum legal rate shall not exceed 5 % per annum above the federal reserve discount rate. While appellant argues the words any contract should be limited to commercial loans only, such a proposition is far from clear, given the confusing language in amendment 60. Appellant’s argument also ignores the logic that voters would normally be expected to avail themselves of the lowest interest rate, if two different rates were available, as may be the case under provisions (a) and (b) of amendment 60. Under the appellant’s theory or construction of the amendment, commercial loans, given the money market today and during the past few years, would be limited to substantially lower legal interest rates than the 17 % rate which appellant says it should be able to charge for a consumer loan. Again, such an argument does not seem compatible with the voters’ intent when trying to give meaning to what they had in mind when they voted to control interest rates. While I am of the view that news articles and other printed materials are not permissible for the court to consider in its attempt to give meaning to amendment 60, I did review the articles and materials proffered in Bishop and found they were of little value. In fact, those materials could be read to support either of the two views argued in Bishop and here, ©n the other hand, the individual views given both here and in Bishop are very much weighted in favor of the position that consumer loans are subject only to the maximum rate of 17% interest under provision (b) and not the discount rate calculated under provision (a). But, for reasons I have set out above, those individual views are simply not admissible. Undoubtedly, if our General Assembly had a system by which a record could be made of its proceedings when construing and passing legislation, valuable information would then be available to the courts when confronted with constitutional and statutory problems such as that presented in Bishop and the case at hand. Until such extrinsic-aid information is provided for our courts, this court is not allowed to consider extraneous testimony from draftsmen, sponsors, legislators and others. The dissent in Bishop and the dissenters in this case are wrong in suggesting otherwise. If we are to allow testimony of special interest groups which might be knowledgeable of constitutional amendments, it would appear just as plausible to permit voters to testify concerning their opinions. Because I am of the opinion that the appellant has not demonstrated that the result reached in Bishop was wrong, I believe the majority court is correct in refusing to overrule that decision.