State ex rel. School Dist. of Kansas City v. Young

• Decision Date: 03 February 1975
• Docket Number: No. KCD,KCD
• Parties: STATE of Missouri ex rel. the SCHOOL DISTRICT OF KANSAS CITY, Relator, v. Harvey B. YOUNG, Jr., et al., each as a member of the Missouri State Board of Education, Respondents. 27181.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

Page 328

519 S.W.2d 328

STATE of Missouri ex rel. the SCHOOL DISTRICT OF KANSAS CITY, Relator, v. Harvey B. YOUNG, Jr., et al., each as a member of the

Missouri State Board of Education, Respondents.

No. KCD 27181.

Missouri Court of Appeals, Kansas City District.

Feb. 3, 1975.

William C. Nulton, Lary L. McMullen, David L. West, Shirley Ward Keeler, Blackwell, Snaders, Matheny, Weary & Lombardi, Kansas City, for relator.

John C. Danforth, Atty. Gen., D. Brook Bartlett, First Asst. Atty. Gen., Jefferson City, for respondents.

Before DIXON, C.J., and SHANGLER, PRITCHARD, SWOFFORD, WASSERSTROM, SOMERVILLE and TURNAGE, JJ.

SOMERVILLE, Judge.

This is an original proceeding in mandamus whereby The School District of Kansas City, hereinafter referred to as 'relator', seeks a writ from this court commanding the members of the Missouri State Board of Education, hereinafter referred to as 'respondents', '(i)n the distribution of state aid to relator, The School District of Kansas City, after July 15, 1973 and through May 31, 1974 to make a deduction which includes only the completed assessed valuation of property in the district of relator, The School District of Kansas City, the preceding year (1972), and specifically does not include property which in the preceding year was in the Pleasant Valley, Jackson County, Missouri School District No. 15 . . .'. An alternative writ was issued and the matter now comes up for decision as to whether the alternative writ should be made peremptory.

The confrontation between relator and respondents, which has culminated in this mandamus proceeding, revolves around statutory language contained in Subsection 2 of Section 163.031, RSMo 1969, V.A.M.S., Section 163.031, supra, one of several sections contained in Chapter 163, RSMo 1969, V.A.M.S., relating to state aid to school districts for their educational programs, contains nine subsections and is captioned, 'Equalization, amount how determined, source of funds, how spent.' Only the contextual portion of Section 163.031, supra, containing the controversial language directly involved in this proceeding will be set forth:

'2. From the minimum guarantee for each district there shall be deducted the amount derived from a tax of one dollar and twenty-five cents for each one hundred dollars of the completed assessed valuation of the property in the district the preceding year equalized to thirty percent . . .'. (Emphasis added.)

Facts precipitating this original proceeding in mandamus may be stated with considerable brevity. On January 1, 1973, relator, as prescribed in Section 162.441, RSMo 1969, V.A.M.S., annexed Pleasant Valley, Jackson County, Missouri School District No. 15, hereinafter referred to as 'Pleasant Valley'. This court notes, parenthetically, that Subsection 3 of Section 162.441, supra, among other things, provides that the boundary lines of a district (relator) to which annexation is proposed, from the date of annexation, 'shall be changed to include the district' which proposed the annexation (Pleasant Valley). Pleasant Valley, for a period of years immediately preceding the effective date of annexation, had failed to meet the eligibility requirements for state aid set forth in Section 163.021, RSMo 1969, V.A.M.S. The 1973 'assessed valuation' of the property formerly in Pleasant Valley was approximately $39,000,000.00. No evidence was presented to the court indicating or suggesting that the 1972 'assessed valuation' of the property formerly in Pleasant Valley was substantially different. In June of 1973 relator filed its application for state aid for the 1973--74 school year. Section 163.081, RSMo 1969, V.A.M.S. The application filed by relator did not reflect 'the amount derived from a tax of one dollar and twenty-five cents for each one hundred dollars' of the assessed valuation of the property in Pleasant Valley for the year of 1972 equalized to thirty percent. Respondents refused to accept relator's application as filed and computed relator's minimum guaranteed state aid for the 1973--74 school year on the basis of additionally deducting 'the amount derived from a tax of one dollar and twenty-five cents for each one hundred dollars' of the assessed valuation of the property in Pleasant Valley for the year 1972 equalized to thirty percent. The end result being that the amount of state aid allocated to relator for the 1973--74 school year was $586,600.00 less than the amount it claims it was entitled to receive. Relator received 'all money and property on hand' belonging to Pleasant Valley on January 1, 1973, 'including a bank account balance of some $400,000.' Section 162.441, supra. On or about July 15, 1973, 'The Kansas City School District's full tax rate ($4.23/$100.00) was levied against the assessed valuation (some $39,000,000.00) of the property which had been a part of the Pleasant Valley School District in 1972'. Since 1949 respondents, and their predecessors, have consistently construed and applied the statutory language, 'in the district', as referring to school districts as geographically constituted at the time of applying for state aid, rather than as geographically constituted the preceding year.

A unanimity of opinion exists between the relator and respondents as to one narrow aspect of their controversy--the judicial key thereto lies in the meaning of the previously quoted language contained in Subsection 2 of Section 163.031, supra. Beyond that, unanimity of opinion between the relator and respondents completely disappears and, as one might well suspect, the relator and respondents are poles apart as to the meaning to be ascribed to the emphasized portion of the quoted statutory language.

The apical issue in this controversy is the point of time prescribed by Subsection 2 of Section 163.031, supra, for initially reflecting, in computing relator's minimum guaranteed state aid, the assessed valuation of the property in the former Pleasant Valley district. Relator vigorously contends the point of time to be 'the year following the year in which the property (was) annexed'. Respondents, with equal vigor, contend the point of time to be 'the time of the first state aid application following (the) change in boundary lines'. Correlating the respective contentions of the parties with the challenged language employed in Subsection 2 of Section 163.031, supra, relator, on the one hand, contends 'property in the district the preceding year' means property in relator district the preceding year as it was geographically constituted the year preceding the annexation of Pleasant Valley, while respondents, on the other hand, contend 'property in the district the preceding year' means property in relator district the preceding year as it was geographically constituted at the time its application for state aid was filed (after annexation of Pleasant Valley).

Relator postulates that the statutory language in question is unequivocal, therefore susceptible only of the meaning it has attributed to it. Relator then advances this unwarranted postulate in a manner that inures to it every favorable benefit that can be derived. Relator's unwarranted postulate in this respect runs the following course. Unambiguous statutes are not subject to judicial construction, courts may not alter statutes under the guise of construction, and certain well fixed principles of statutory construction are either not controlling or are irrelevant: all feeding relator's ultimate thesis that a literal reading of the statutory language in question, beyond the pale of judicial doubt, lends itself solely to the meaning ascribed to it by relator.

This court is not clairvoyant. The statutory language under scrutiny has been read and re-read, studied and re-studied, casually and intensely, in depth and superficially, and each reading and approach has left this court with the unshakable conclusion that the language employed is patently subject to an ancipital meaning, thereby necessarily rendering it ambiguous. More bluntly put, this court has been unable to literally read a definite and fixed point of time for determining the boundaries of a district from the language 'the complete assessed valuation of the property in the district the preceding year'. Is the controlling point of time when the application for state aid is filed or the preceding year? The statutory language employed is susceptible of either interpretation. The ambiguous nature of the language is exemplified by the diametrically opposed construction advanced by the relator and respondents. 'Language is ambiguous where it is susceptible of interpretation in opposite ways.' J. E. Blank v. Lennox Land Co., 351 Mo. 932, 174 S.W.2d 862, 868 (banc 1943). More directly in point, '(a) statute or portion thereof is ambiguous when it is capable of being understood by reasonably well-informed persons in wither of two or more senses.' State v. Lucas, 24 Wis.2d 262, 128 N.W.2d 425, 428 (1964).

From a practical standpoint, the ambiguity in question breaks the surface and becomes viable only on those limited occasions when the boundaries of a school district at the time of applying for state aid are different than they were the preceding year. When the boundaries of a district at the time of applying for state aid and during the preceding year are the same, the ambiguity, for all practical purposes, is dormant. But dormant or viable, the ambiguity inheres by virtue of the language utilized in the statute.

The court is not unmindful that it has no prerogative, under the guise of judicial construction, to impart or interpolate words into an unambiguous statute. Betz v. Kansas City Southern Ry. Company, 314 Mo. 390, 284 S.W. 455, 461 (1926); and McLaurin v. Frisella Moving and Storage Company, 355 S.W.2d 360, 364 (Mo.App.1962). On the other hand, it is cognizant that it is impressed with a judicial duty to construe and determine the meaning of ambiguous legislative acts involved in...