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ROL_2009_04_24 – Eddie Craig discusses your Right to travel and the traffic code in Texas. Statutes, regs, and TERMINOLOGY.
Nacogdoches man [Eddie Craig] ready to go to jail over his traffic tickets
A battle for ‘personal liberty’
By MATTHEW STOFF The Daily Sentinel
Sunday, November 30, 2008
http://www.dailysentinel.com/news/content/news/stories/2008/11/30/eddie_craig_113008.html
Great show, but there is something important to consider relative to Eddie’s definition of “Person” found in Govt Code 311.
(2) “Person” includes corporation, organization, government or governmental subdivision or agency, business trust, estate, trust, partnership, association, and any other legal entity.
He failed to mention this part of the same statute:
(13) “Includes” and “including” are terms of enlargement and not of limitation or exclusive enumeration, and use of the terms does not create a presumption that components not expressed are excluded.
It seems difficult to get around this clear broadening of the definitions in question.
Please prove me wrong…
Great comment cpkdoc! I came back and make a similar comment. I’m sure that Eddie will appreciate others catching this stuff.
I called into the show again last night, and asked about this specific issue. Eddie made a point to the effect that, because the SCOTUS (he didn’t cite a case) has defined the word “includes” and “including” that they could not be redefined statutorily. It sounded good at the time, but i also know that the IRS uses this word game extensively and there is much discussion on this very subject at http://www.losthorizons.com/appendix.htm#Includes
Anyway, i’m with Eddie in this fight, i just don’t want to overlook this point because so much is hinged on it.
The ultimate question at hand, i believe, is whether the state is able to circumvent judicial rulings relative to the terms “includes” and “including” by defining both terms in their statutes? As a side note, the IRS simply uses both terms without defining them, which is where all the discussion on the losthorizons.com/forum about this subject persists.
The Govt Code 311 reads as:
(13) “Includes” and “including” are terms of enlargement and not of limitation or exclusive enumeration, and use of the terms does not create a presumption that components not expressed are excluded.
However, here are a few court cases discussed on the losthorizons forum relative to these terms which still leave me with confusion about who’s right, the State or Eddie?
The principle involved in the “includes” mechanism is largely that described by the Supreme Court in Gustafson v. Alloyd Co. (93-404), 513 US 561 (1995):
“…a word is known by the company it keeps (the doctrine of noscitur a sociis). This rule we rely upon to avoid ascribing to one word a meaning so broad that it is inconsistent with its accompanying words, thus giving “unintended breadth to the Acts of Congress.”
clarified by these additional, related rulings:
“When a statute includes an explicit definition, we must follow that definition, even if it varies from that term’s ordinary meaning.” Stenberg v. Carhart, 530 U.S. 914 (2000)
“It is axiomatic that the statutory definition of the term excludes unstated meanings of that term.” U.S. Supreme Court, Meese v. Keene, 481 U.S. 465 (1987)
“Of course, statutory definitions of terms used therein prevail over colloquial meanings. Fox v. Standard Oil Co., 294 U.S. 87, 95, 55 S.Ct. 333, 336.” Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Lenroot, 323 U.S. 490 (1945)
Anyway…i’m hoping this is addressed a bit further in the seminar or on the show because we all know the state is going to point out the defined meaning of “includes” and “including”.
Okay, so here’s another case with a Supreme Court Justice directly addressing the terms “including” and “includes”…
“It [is argued that] the word “including” means “moreover”, or “as well as”; but if this was the meaning of the legislature, it was a very embarrassing mode of expressing the idea.” Chief Justice Marshall of the United States Supreme Court, United States v. The Schooner Betsey and Charlotte, 8 U.S. 443 (1808). Marshall proceeds to observe that the proposition that “moreover” or “as well as” is, in fact, what is meant by the legislative use of “including” (or, by extension, includes) is nonsense.
This seems pretty clear. I’d like to see how Randy or Eddie would frame this and the other cases together to make it irrefutable.