E. I. Du Pont De Nemours & Co. v. Clark

• Decision Date: 05 May 1952
• Docket Number: No. 6,6
• Citation: 88 A.2d 436,32 Del.Ch. 527
• Court: Supreme Court of Delaware
• Parties: E. I. DU PONT DE NEMOURS & CO. v. CLARK et al.

Page 436

88 A.2d 436

32 Del.Ch. 527

E. I. DU PONT DE NEMOURS & CO. v. CLARK et al.

No. 6.

Supreme Court of Delaware.

May 5, 1952.

Hugh M. Morris and George T. Coulson, of Wilmington, for appellant.

William S. Satterthwaite and Clarence W. Taylor, of Wilmington, for appellees.

WOLCOTT and TUNNELL, Justices, and HERRMANN, Judge, sitting.

WOLCOTT, Justice.

This is an action for a declaratory judgment to the effect that a building being erected by the appellant on its property in Mill Creek Hundred, New Castle County, is property to be used for industrial purposes and, as such, exempt from the provisions of the Plumbing and the Building Codes of New Castle County. Upon the filing of the amended complaint, the appellees and their agents were restrained from demanding that the appellant obtain permits under the Codes in connection with the construction of its building.

The appellees moved to dismiss the complaint and to dissolve the restraining order. After final hearing, the Vice Chancellor entered a judgment dissolving the restraining order and dismissing the action. From this judgment the appeal has been taken.

The motion to dismiss necessarily admitted the truth of the allegations of the amended complaint. The following facts, therefore, may be taken as established for the purposes of this appeal.

The appellant, a Delaware corporation, is extensively engaged in manufacturing and selling chemical products throughout the United States and in foreign countries, and is, generally speaking, engaged in the industrial chemical business. In order to further the objects and purposes of its business, it is essential that the appellant provide laboratories, factories, warehouses, and office buildings for the use of its executive, clerical, technical and other employees. The functions performed by its employees of all categories are each indispensable to and indissoluble from the appellant's activities in the chemical industry.

The particular building of the appellant sought by the appellees to be made subject to the provisions of the Building and the Plumbing Codes of New Castle County is an office building now under construction, not for sale, but for the use of the appellant's Engineering Department in connection with its functions in the appellant's business.

Upon the basis of these facts, appellant contends that its property involved in this cause falls within two of the exemptions provided for in the enabling statutes under which the Building and the Plumbing Codes were promulgated by the Levy Court of New Castle County. ¹

In so far as they are pertinent to the cause sub judice the statutes are similar. We are concerned only with the exemption provisions found in both since the appellant seeks to bring itself within two of those exemptions. Each statute contains five exemptions or exceptions of properties from its provisions. These are substantially as follows:

(1) Structures necessary to the operation of farm lands;

(2) Properties located within any incorporated city or town;

(3) Properties used for industrial purposes;

(4) Properties built by industrial concerns for the use of their employees and not for sale;

(5) Properties owned by individuals who desire to do their own work.

Appellant argues that the building it is now constructing is exempt from the provisions of the Codes by reason of exemptions numbered 3 and 4. We will first consider Exemption No. 3.

Appellant argues that the adjective 'industrial' means having to do with, pertaining to, relating to or connected with production, industry or the manufacture of commodities and, as such, has a sufficiently broad meaning to embrace any property of an industrial concern used in connection with its business generally.

Appellees argue that the adjective 'industrial', as used in the acts under consideration, is synonymous with 'manufacturing' and that Exemption No. 3 covers only buildings and properties actually used in a manufacturing process. Broadly speaking, appellees contend that only factories are included in Exemption No. 3.

The decisions to which we are cited by both sides are not dispositive of the question. We are referred to language appearing in opinions dealing with somewhat comparable problems of statutory construction in which the words 'industrial' or 'industry' or 'manufacturing' are defined. We do not think these cases are particularly helpful in the solution of the problem with which we are faced except that they indicate the lack of preciseness in the definition of the word 'industrial' and the consequent need for the resolution of an apparent ambiguity in the exemptions contained in the statutes. The most that can be said for the authorities to which we have been cited on this point is that they demonstrate that under some circumstances the word 'industrial' may mean pertaining to all facets of an industry, and that, under other circumstances, it may mean only the actual process of manufacture carried on in a factory. We think it plain that the scope of the exemption may not be determined solely by reference to a dictionary.

We are faced, therefore, with the necessity of construing the exemptions in the two statutes before us. In so doing, we are required to give to the statutory words a reasonable and sensible meaning in the light of their intent and purpose. Petition of Hoopes, 1 Terry 126, 5 A.2d 655; Darling Apartment Co. v. Springer, 25 Del.Ch. 420, 22 A.2d 397, 137 A.L.R. 803. The object of statutory construction is to give, if possible, a sensible and practical meaning to a statute as a whole so that it may be applied in future cases as well as the present one without difficulty. The court must necessarily be guided by the presumption that the Legislature did not intend an unreasonable, absurd or unworkable result. If from the statute as a whole the object sought to be attained or the general intent underlying the statutory language can be ascertained, it will be given effect by the courts. Darling Apartment Co. v. Springer, supra.

In determining the meaning of ambiguous statutory language, an appreciation of the results which may follow from one possible construction or another may, on occasion, be conclusive as to the correct construction to be placed upon the language, since an irrational, impractical or excessive result presumably could not have been intended by the Legislature. Roland Park Co. v. State, 80 Md. 448, 31 A. 298; Commonwealth v. Peoples, 345 Pa. 576, 28 A.2d 762; People's Holding Co. v. Bray, 118 Conn. 568, 173 A. 233; St. Paul's Church v. City of Concord, 75 N.H. 420, 75 A. 531, 27 L.R.A.,N.S., 910. Since exemptions no less than other portions of a statute are entitled to the application of the rule of reasonable construction, a particular construction of an exemption will be adopted when such construction appears to be the only reasonable one in accordance with the underlying legislative intent which will give a fixed, permanent and certain rule easily applied to future cases. 50 Am.Jur., Statutes, § 431; Langdon v. Doud, 6 Allen, Mass., 423.

Appellant argues that the statutes under consideration are in derogation of its common-law right to the free and unhampered use of property and, therefore, should be strictly construed so as to narrow their application, while appellees argue that the statutes are designed to promote the health and safety of the public and that, accordingly, the statutes as a whole should be liberally construed and the exemptions confined in their operation as narrowly as possible. We think neither the so-called rules of strict or liberal construction are of much aid in the problem before us. Whatever the nature of the statute under construction may be, the primary object of construction is to reach a result in conformity with the supposed policy of the statute. Once the policy of the statute is determined, the task of construction is eased for the result then need only be tested by the rules of reasonableness and conformity with the policy of the statute.

It is difficult to arrive at any completely satisfactory conclusion with respect to the precise intent with which the Legislature included the exemptions we are concerned with. Since the enabling acts are designed to promote the public health and safety, it is difficult to ascribe any reason to the exclusion of industrial properties for it would be unreasonable to assume that they do not affect the public health and safety and, therefore, need not be required to conform to the general plumbing and building standards presumably designed to safeguard the public health and safety. Since, obviously, properties used for industrial purposes can affect the public health and safety as well as properties not used for industrial purposes, some other reason must have led to the exemption of such properties from the operative effect of the codes adopted pursuant to the authority contained in the statutes exempting this type of property.

The most rational explanation that can be placed upon exemption of properties used for industrial purposes is that the exemption is designed to favor industry and, thus, attract it to New Castle County on the theory that the industrial growth of the county would benefit the community. Such a policy is not novel in this state. The Legislature has long provided for exemption from county taxation of property located in certain designated areas 'upon which any manufacturing or other industrial improvements for the employment of labor shall be erected'. 1935 Code, § 1258. The Council of the Town of Delmar, by 45 Laws of Del., Ch. 182, Sec. 14, p6, is authorized to exempt from taxation 'any industry which contemplates locating within said Town,' provided the number of its employees shall warrant such an exemption. The Council of the City of New Castle is authorized, by 37 Laws of Del., Ch. 163, to remit taxes levied upon real estate upon which 'any new manufacturing or other industrial...