Court Opinion

ID: 9791080
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:04:58.401757+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:33.850203
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice McWilliams
dissenting:
The only issue posed by this writ of error is a determination as to the construction or interpretation to be given a statute, namely C.R.S. ’53, 123-22-1, et seq. In my view the majority of this Court have misconstrued and misinterpreted the statute here in question, the statute being couched in what is to me quite plain and readily understandable English. It is for this reason that I dis*54sent, and I shall now attempt to demonstrate my thinking in this regard.
C.R.S. ’53, 123-22-1 and 2 indicate a legislative intent to provide means for educating those children who are so physically and mentally handicapped as to make it impractical or impossible for them to participate in or benefit from regular classroom programs. Section 4 of this article concerns itself with the administration of the program and provides, inter alia, that the State Board of Education shall prescribe “reasonable rules and regulations covering procedures to be followed by those districts electing to establish special educational programs.”
Section 6 of this same article concerns itself with the enrollment of a child in this special educational program. It states, inter alia, that the parent or guardian of any such handicapped child shall make application for this special training “upon prescribed form.” In this regard the State Board by rule has decreed that the prescribed form of application shall include a recommendation or certification by a “physician licensed to practice medicine in the State.” As is stated in the majority opinion, the application in the instant case did not comply with this rule.
Continuing then with my analysis of this statute, it is noted and emphasized that under the statute the filing of a proper application does not in and of itself guarantee enrollment of the applicant in this special course of study. There are several other requirements which must be met before there may be an actual enrollment. In this connection, section 6, above referred to, goes on to state that one such requirement is that once the application is made the applicant “shall thereupon undergo physical and psychological examination by state accredited personnel for the purpose of determining whether or not he is capable of receiving benefit from participation in such a special education program . . .” (Emphasis supplied.)
It is the contention of the plaintiff in error that the *55rule of the State Board that the application shall be accompanied by a recommendation from a physician licensed to practice medicine in this State is invalid, not because it is an unreasonable rule or regulation, but because the rule is somehow in conflict with the statutory requirement that the physical and psychological examination (which is to be made after the application is filed) must be conducted by “state accredited personnel.” To me, this contention is based on an obvious misunderstanding of the statute under consideration and results from an improper commingling and scrambling of the statutory requirement relating to the physical and psychological examination, which is to be made after the application has been filed, and the rule of the State Board as to the prescribed form of the application. A fortiori, the majority of this Court then fall into the same error when they uphold this contention and in so doing state that the “real inquiry presented to the Court is the validity of the rule and regulation of the State Board declaring that only a physician licensed to practice medicine in Colorado fits the definition in the statute of ‘state accredited personnel.’ ”
Also, in my view the majority have assigned a completely unwarranted interpretation to the phrase “state accredited personnel,” which simply reinforces my definite belief that the requirement of the statute that the physical and psychological examination to be made by “state accredited personnel” after an application has been filed is distinct from, and unrelated to, the application itself. In this regard the majority appear to hold that anyone licensed by the State to practice any of the several healing arts is by virtue of the fact that he is so licensed a “state accredited personnel.” This to me is a strained and unwarranted interpretation. In my view neither a physician nor a chiropractor who is engaged in the private practice of his profession can be properly classified as “state accredited personnel.” Rather, I would *56interpret this phrase in the context in which it is used as meaning that the physical and psychological examination is to be made, for example, by a school district’s doctor, or psychologist or chiropractor, or if the school district has no such personnel, then no doubt such personnel, or some of them, would be found at the Colorado General Hospital, for example, or in some other public office. The word “personnel” is defined by Webster’s New International Dictionary, Second Edition, unabridged, as “the body of persons employed in some public service, or the Army or Navy, or in a factory, office, airship, etc.” To classify a physician or a chiropractor who is engaged in the private practice of his chosen profession as one who is “state accredited personnel” is to give this phrase an unwarranted and unjustified meaning.