Continued in the November/December Issue.
78 www.EliteEquestrianMagazine.com EQUINE Lifestyle
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Florida jurisprudence has been very clear that if the Legislature
did not specifically intend to include a category into
a statute, then the public, and the courts, cannot on their
own include those categories. “Legislative intent must be
determined primarily from the language of the statute.”
Walker v. Virginia Insurance Reciprocal, Case No. SC00-
1710 (Fla. 2003); Aetna Cas. & Sur. Co. v. Huntington Nat’l
Bank, 609 So.2d 1315, 1317 (Fla.1992). Statutory interpretation
thus begins with an examination of the literal words of
a statute. A.R. Douglass, Inc. v. McRainey, 102 Fla. 1141,
1144, 137 So. 157, 159 (1931); Carson v. Miller, 370 So.2d 10
(Fla. 1979); Ross v. Gore, 48 So.2d 412 (Fla. 1950) (no need
for deploying rules of statutory interpretation if statute is
clear on its face). Courts of this state are:
‘Without power to construe an unambiguous statute in a
way which would extend, modify, or limit, its express
terms or its reasonable and obvious implications. To do so
would be an abrogation of legislative power.’
Holly v. Auld, et al., 450 So.2d 217, 219 (Fla. 1984)
“It is a fundamental principle of statutory construction that
where the language of a statute is plain and unambiguous
there is no occasion for judicial interpretation. As this Court
set forth more than 70 years ago in Van Pelt v. Hilliard 75
Fla. 792, 798-99, 78 So. 693, 694-95 (1918):
The United States Supreme Court has explained that it is
proper for states and federal courts to follow the same
canons of statutory interpretation, utilizing the text of the
law and the legislative purpose together, like blades of a
pair of scissors. See, e.g.: Ransom v. FIA Card Servs. NA, 562
U.S. 61 (2011) (starting opinion with statutory purpose, analyzing
text, and confirming ordinary meaning by reference
back to purpose); Carr v. United States, 560 U.S. 438, 444-48,
450-58 (2010) (similar); William N. Eskridge Jr., Dynamic
Statutory Interpretation ch. 1 (1994); Posner, How Judges
Think, 253-54. The scissors metaphor is inspired by L.L. Fuller,
American Legal Realism, 76 Proc. Am. Phil. Soc’y 191, 223-
23 (1936) (suggesting that Law and Society are like two
blades of a scissors).
b. A Stablekeeper’s or Agister’s Lien law should be read
together with other laws from that state.
Laws are supposed and are intended to be read completely
and within the context of all of the sub-parts of the
law and with regard to laws on a similar subject. The doctrine
of in pari materia is a principle of statutory construction
that requires that statutes relating to the same subject
or object be construed together to harmonize the statutes
and to give effect to the Legislature’s intent. See Forsythe
v. Longboat Key Beach Erosion Control Dist., 604 So. 2d 452,
455 (Fla. 1992)(“Where possible, courts must give full effect
to all statutory provisions and construe related statutory
provisions in harmony with one another.”). See also Albany
Law Sch. v. N.Y. State Office of Mental Retardation & Dev.
Disabilities, 19 N.Y.3d 106, 121 (2012); Natural Resources
Defense Council v. Arcata National Corporation (1976) 59
Cal.App.3d 959, 965 131 Cal.Rptr. 172.
Again using Florida’s stablekeeper’s law as an example,
reading F.S. § 713.65 in pari materia with other statutes on
closely-related equine liens leads to the conclusion that
the Legislature specifically excluded “training” and equine
trainers from the categories of permissible lien charges and
service providers. There is no Florida statute providing a
horse trainer a claim of lien for training services. Florida’s
stablekeepers’ statute is different than certain other state
laws, such as West Virginia, Maryland and Missouri, which
specifically include “training.”
Reading other Florida statutes on the topic leads to the
reasonable conclusion the Florida legislature specifically
declined to include “training” expenses into a second lien
statute on the subject. Specifically, F.S. § 713.66, which
applies specifically to racehorses, polo ponies and dogs,
allows a non-possessory lien only to those who “furnish
corn, oats, hay, grain or other feed or feedstuffs or straw or
bedding material” for the cost thereof. As well, the Florida
Legislature has provided an express remedy to veterinary
professionals for the professional services veterinarians supply
to horses.
The point is that while providing feed providers and veterinarians
specific lien rights against horses for their materials
and services, a law-making body, such as the Florida Legislature
in the present example, may have not specifically
provided equine trainers a right of lien against horses for
training services. In that case, a trainer and their attorneys
should resist the temptation to include all overdue charges
in a claim of lien when some of those overdue charges
include training fees.
“The Legislature must be understood to mean what
it has plainly expressed and this excludes construction.
The Legislative intent being plainly expressed, so
that the act read by itself or in connection with other
statutes pertaining to the same subject is clear, certain
and unambiguous, the courts have only the simple
and obvious duty to enforce the law according to its
terms. Cases cannot be included or excluded merely
because there is intrinsically no reason against it. Even
where a court is convinced that the Legislature really
meant and intended something not expressed in the
phraseology of the act, it will not deem itself authorized
to depart from the plain meaning of the language
which is free from ambiguity. If a Legislative enactment
violates no constitutional provision or principle it must
be deemed its own sufficient and conclusive evidence
of the justice, propriety and policy of its passage.
Courts have then no power to set it aside or evade its
operation by forced and unreasonable construction.
If it has been passed improvidently the responsibility is
with the Legislature and not the courts. Whether the
law be expressed in general or limited terms, the Legislature
should be held to mean what they have plainly
expressed, and consequently no room is left for construction,
but if from a view of the whole law, or from
other laws in pari materia the evident intent is different
from the literal import of the terms employed to express
it in a particular part of the law, that intent should prevail,
for that, in fact is the will of the Legislature.”
Forsythe v. Longboat Key Beach Erosion Control District,
604 So.2d 452, 454-455 (Fla.1992), reh.den. (1992) citations
omitted emphasis added.
Continued from page 38
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