Pinellas County v. Woolley
| Decision Date | 08 July 1966 |
| Docket Number | No. 7087,7087 |
| Parties | PINELLAS COUNTY, a political subdivision of the State of Florida, Appellant, v. William G. WOOLLEY and Lillian M. Woolley, his wife, appellees. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Page S. Jackson and John G. Fletcher, Clearwater, for appellant.
M. H. Jones, Clearwater, for appellees.
Appellant, plaintiff below, brings this Interlocutory appeal from an order entered by the chancellor granting the motion for summary decree made by appellees, defendants below.
Plaintiff Pinellas County brought a suit in equity charging that defendants were maintaining on their property an incompleted structure which allegedly violated Chapter 57--1734, Laws of Floridda, 1957. Plaintiff alleged its doubt at to its authority to require removal of the structure and prayed for a declaratory decree. Defendants defended primarily upon the theory that their property was excluded from the provisions of the act in question.
Chapter 57--1734, Laws of Florida, 1957, reads in pertinent part:
Defendants moved for a summary decree upon the ground that their property was located more than 150 feet from the nearest point of any intersection of any state, municipal or county road within Pinellas County, and the property was therefore exempt from the operation of the above-quoted act. The chancellor granted defendants' motion stating that '(t)he plain, clear and unambiguous phrasing of the controlling portion of the Statute effectively eliminates from its purview those lands lying either more than 150 feet from an intersection or more than 600 feet from an occupied dwelling.' Plaintiff's appeal questions this construction.
The effect of the chancellor's construction is that two separate and distinct classes of property are excluded from the operation of the act. The first class consists of property lying more than 150 feet from the nearest point of any intersection of any state, municipal or county road within Pinellas County. The second class, according to the chancellor's interpretation, is property lying more than 600 feet from any inhabited dwelling within Pinellas County.
We observe, however, that if the chancellor's view is followed, the only property to which the act would apply is that lying within 150 feet of the nearest intersection. If All property located more than 150 feet from the nearest point of any intersection is excluded from the operation of the act, then there is no need to provide for the second exception, i.e., property lying more than 600 feet from an occupied dwelling, because it would make no difference how far the offending property was from an inhabited dwelling. The 600-foot exception would then be mere surplusage.
Furthermore, the chancellor's construction would exclude property lying, for example, 151 feet from an intersection but lying a mere 10 or 20 feet from an occupied house. Since the act provides for the clearing of property of weeds, etc. tending to create a fire or health hazard as well as noxious material or growth tending to create a traffic hazard, it is highly doubtful that the Legislature intended such a result.
Two of the fundamental rules of statutory construction are that courts should construe a statute so that the plain intent of the Legislature is given effect and that courts should not construe a statute in such a manner as to reach an absurd conclusion if any other construction is possible. State Dept. of Public Welfare v. Bland, 66 So.2d 59 (Fla.1953); State ex rel. Florida Industrial Comm. v. Willis, 124 So.2d 48 (D.C.A.Fla.1960). Moreover, words in a statute should not be construed as surplusage if a reasonable construction which will give them some force and meaning is possible. 82 C.J.S. Statutes § 343. The chancellor himself recognized that '* * * as construed herein, the Act may be characterized as illogical and ineffective. * * *' He felt, however, that to give any other interpretation to the statute would amount to rewriting it, a task he was justifiably unwilling to undertake.
Much as we sympathize with this position, we feel that the obvious intent of the Legislature in passing the statute may be given effect by applying recognized rules of construction without rewriting the statute as such. The clause providing for the property excluded from the act's operation provides:
'* * * (P)rovided, however, that nothing herein shall pertain t any lands lying more than 150 feet from the nearest point of any intersection of any state, municipality, or county road within Pinellas county, Or lying more than 600 feet from any inhabited dwelling within Pinellas county.' (Emphasis added.)
Plaintiff contends that the italicized word 'or' should be construed to mean the conjunctive 'and.' This contention has considerable merit.
In Pompano Horse Club v. State, 93 Fla. 415, 111 So. 801, 52 A.L.R. 51 (1927), the Florida Supreme Court observed:
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