Court Opinion

ID: 9627700
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 08:51:06.34839+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:38:49.429474
License: Public Domain

WERDEGAR, J., Concurring.
I agree with the majority that this poorly drafted, ambiguous statute should not be construed to apply to product liability actions. As we have said many times, when a statute’s terms are ambiguous in a critical respect, we may properly look beyond the law’s language to its history for clues to its intended meaning; this is as true of initiative measures as of statutes enacted in the Legislature. (See, e.g., Legislature v. Eu (1991) 54 Cal.3d 492, 504-505 [286 Cal.Rptr. 283, 816 P.2d 1309].) Proposition 213, as the majority opinion amply demonstrates, is ambiguous in its stated application to “any action to recover damages arising out of’ operation or use of a motor vehicle. (Maj. opn., ante, at pp. 113-114; see Central Pathology Service Medical Clinic, Inc. v. Superior Court (1992) 3 Cal.4th 181, 187-188 [10 Cal.Rptr.2d 208, 832 P.2d 924].) Consequently, we may appropriately look to its legislative history. That history, as the majority opinion illustrates, supports our decision in this case.
I write separately because I cannot agree with the broadly nontextual approach to statutory interpretation reflected in the majority’s statements that “we may not properly interpret [an initiative] measure in a way that the electorate did not contemplate” and that we must, therefore, look first to the electorate’s “purpose.” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 114.) Initiative measures, no less than statutes enacted by the Legislature, should, when possible, be interpreted according to the usual and ordinary meaning of their terms. (DaFonte v. Up-Right, Inc. (1992) 2 Cal.4th 593, 601 [7 Cal.Rptr.2d 238, 828 P.2d 140].) With an initiative, as with a statute passed by bill, we should “focus first on the language” of the measure and seek therein its meaning. (Legislature v. Eu, supra, 54 Cal.3d at p. 503.) At times this will, indeed, mean that the law has consequences the voters did not specifically “contemplate.” The majority’s cure for this problem, however, is worse than the disease.
The legislative process is inherently laborious. Done well, it requires that a law’s proponents take special care in drafting its provisions, and consult with those knowledgeable in the particular area of law involved, to ensure the statute is tailored to address the problem at hand and will not have too many unintended consequences. Initiative measures, which do not undergo the same review by legislative committees and the Governor as do bills, may not be well suited to making complex changes to statutory law in certain areas. Drafters of statutory initiatives may be well advised to narrow their *120proposed measures if they cannot be certain what effects a broad and complex measure will have. Under the best of circumstances, legislation may turn out to overshoot or fall short of its intended mark, and might require “fine tuning” in a later session or at a later election. Again, since initiative statutes are typically harder to revise than those enacted by the Legislature, a prudent proponent will be particularly careful in drafting, and might consider limiting the measure rather than risk the unforeseen effects of attempting a broad statutory revision through initiative. Whether by bill or initiative, lawmaking can be time-consuming and inefficient.
In my view, however, the alternative—judicial revision of statutes to give the legislators or voters what the court thinks they “really” wanted—is worse. Without a bedrock assumption that this court will enforce the law as enacted, private individuals, government agencies, attorneys and lower courts have no firm basis for their decisions; drafters of legislation have little incentive to craft their products carefully; and, most important, the public has less assurance the court’s decision will not be influenced by its members’ personal policy views. (See People v. Jefferson (1999) 21 Cal.4th 86, 103-104 [86 Cal.Rptr.2d 893, 980 P.2d 441] (dis. opn. of Werdegar, J.).) For these reasons, our goal in construing initiative measures, as with legislatively enacted statutes, should ordinarily be to determine the objective meaning of the measure’s provisions, not what specific applications we discern the voters subjectively “contemplate[d]” (maj. opn., ante, at p. 114) the measure would have.
There are occasions, of course, when literal construction of a statute is not possible, either because the law’s terms are critically ambiguous or because literal interpretation would create a logically absurd application of the law, one completely beyond the subject matter of the legislation or one directly contrary to its expressed intent. But we should reach that conclusion only after making a sincere and thorough attempt to apply a statute—however it was enacted—according to its terms.