Florida State Racing Commission v. McLaughlin

• Decision Date: 26 March 1958
• Citation: 102 So.2d 574
• Court: Florida Supreme Court
• Parties: FLORIDA STATE RACING COMMISSION and Clarence H. Ratliff, John R. Ring, J. D. Johnson, C. Sweet Smith, Jr., and Warren H. Toole, Jr., as and constituting the Florida State Racing Commission, and Seminole Park & Fairgrounds, Inc., a Florida corporation, Appellants, v. Leon V. McLAUGHLIN and Sanford-Orlando Kennel Club, Inc., a Floridacorporation, Appellees.

Page 574

102 So.2d 574

FLORIDA STATE RACING COMMISSION and Clarence H. Ratliff, John R. Ring, J. D. Johnson, C. Sweet Smith, Jr., and Warren H. Toole, Jr., as and constituting the Florida State Racing Commission, and Seminole Park & Fairgrounds, Inc., a Florida corporation, Appellants, v. Leon V. McLAUGHLIN and Sanford-Orlando Kennel Club, Inc., a Floridacorporation, Appellees.

Supreme Court of Florida.

March 26, 1958.

Rehearing Denied May 2, 1958.

Richard W. Ervin, Atty. Gen., George E. Owen, Asst. Atty. Gen., and George F. Gilleland, Miami, for Florida State Racing Commission.

Turnbull & Senterfitt, Orlando, and Paty, Downey & Daves, West Palm Beach, for Seminole Park & Fairgrounds, Inc.

W. J. Steed, James A. Urban, Orlando, and Carl T. Hoffman (of Hoffman, Kemper & Johnston), Miami, for appellees.

DREW, Justice.

Leon V. McLaughlin, a citizen, resident, taxpayer and elector of Seminole County, and the Sanford-Orlando Kennel Club, Inc., a Florida corporation, engaged in the business of operating a race track in Seminole County under a permit from the State of Florida, filed a suit for declaratory decree against the Florida State Racing Commission and the individual members thereof and Seminole Park & Fairgrounds, Inc. The suit was instituted for the purpose of securing a judicial interpretation of certain statutes of the State relating to the distance required between plants holding racing permits; to secure a determination that a permit issued to Seminole Park & Fairgrounds, Inc., one of the defendants, for a harness racing track, was issued illegally; and to enjoin the Racing Commission from issuing said permit or fixing any racing dates. Relief also was sought with reference to an election held in Seminole County which it was alleged was conducted in an illegal and unlawful manner. The defendants appeared in said cause and filed motions to dismiss and motions to strike portions of the complaint. Thereafter the matter was set for final hearing before the circuit judge on the motions to dismiss and strike. At the final hearing the respective parties stipulated that 'this case has been restricted to a consideration of a single question:

'Does Section 550.05, Florida Statutes (F.S.A.), forbid the operation of a harness horse racing track within one hundred miles of a dog racing plant?'

Pursuant to such stipulation and after final hearing the court entered a final decree, the pertinent portions of which are as follows:

'The pertinent part of the statute reads as follows:

"* * * No permit shall be issued by the racing commission or voted upon in any county to conduct running horse races, harness horse races or dog races at a location within one hundred miles road travel via most practicable route of another location for which a permit has been issued and a racing plant located * * *.'

'It is elementary that the function of the Court is to ascertain and give effect to the Legislative intent in enacting a statute.

'In applying this principle certain rules have been adopted to guide the process of judicial thinking. The first of these is that the Legislature is conclusively presumed to have a working knowledge of the English language and when a statute has been drafted in such manner as to clearly convey a specific meaning the only proper function of the Court is to effectuate this legislative intent.

'This rule is subject to the qualification that if a part of a statute appears to have a clear meaning if considered alone but when given that meaning is inconsistent with other parts of the same statute or others in pari materia, the Court will examine the entire act and those in pari materia in order to ascertain the overall legislative intent.

'When construing a particular part of a statute it is only when the language being construed in and of itself is of doubtful meaning or doubt as to its meaning is engendered by apparent inconsistency with other parts of the same or a closely related statute that any matter extrinsic the statute may be considered by the Court in arriving at the meaning of the language employed by the Legislature.

'Nothing is more essential to the proper recognition of the legislative function in government or more conducive to avoidance of inadvertent invasion of that field by the courts than the proposition, often announced, that the courts may not go outside the statutes themselves to seek reasons for doubt as to the meaning of a statute and then use these extraneous reasons as a basis for giving a statute a meaning different from that conveyed by the language chosen by the Legislature to express its intent.

'Applying these rules to the case before the Court no conclusion can be reached but that the statute forbids the granting of a permit for the operation of a harness horse racing track within one hundred miles of a previously licensed and operating dog racing track.

'The quoted language conveys a clear, definite and specific meaning. The phrase 'a location for which a permit has been issued and a racing plant located' is in...