“An intention to enact a barren and ineffective provision is not lightly to be imputed to the Legislature”
How later courts described this case
- “An intention to enact a barren and ineffective provision is not lightly to be imputed to the Legislature”
- "Where the Legislature uses the same words in several sections which concern the same subject matter, the words must be presumed to have been used with the same meaning in each section" [quotation and citation omitted]
- intention to enact barren, ineffective provision not lightly imputed to Legislature
- “An intention to enact a barren and *232 ineffective provision is not lightly to be imputed to the Legislature”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
*193 Cutter, J.
(concurring) I concur in parts 1 through 4 of the opinion and in the results stated in part 6. My concurrence in the result reached in part 5 of the opinion, is on the following grounds: (a) The Commissioner, by his order of November 25, 1968, purported to establish for 1969 automobile property damage rates for the purposes of, and to the extent set out in, G. L. c. 175, § 113C, as amended by St. 1968, c. 643, § 3. Although the meaning of the final sentence of § 113C, as amended by § 3 of the 1968 statute, is uncertain in various respects, I interpret the sentence as intended to make all the procedures under § 113B applicable to the determination and review of rates under § 113C, as amended, (b) Section 113B permits review of the Commissioner’s orders under that section “within twenty days from the filing of . . . [the] memorandum thereof in his office,” by a petition for review filed in the county court. The only proceeding initiated within twenty days after November 25, 1968, was the petition for declaratory relief mentioned in the first paragraph of the opinion (seasonably filed on December 16, 1968, because December 15 was a Sunday; see G. L. c. 4, § 9). Paragraph 22 of that petition reads, “The petitioners seek declaratory relief under G. L. c. 231A and, insofar as the memorandum of November 25 constitutes an order or other action of the Commissioner which may he appealed to this Court, under C. L. c. 175, s. USB or under any other provisions of the General Laws, the petitioners also appeal therefrom” (emphasis supplied), (c) Even if it be assumed that this petition constitutes a proper petition for review under § 113B, the question of review of the Commissioner’s action of November 25, 1968, as action establishing automobile property damage rates for 1969, does not appear to have been argued in the brief for the petitioners. Accordingly, I conclude that that type of review is not now sought and has been abandoned. See S. J. C. Rule 1:13 ( 351 Mass. 738 ).