# State Ex Rel. Wright v. Oklahoma Corp. Commission

> Supreme Court of Oklahoma · October 3, 2007 · 170 P.3d 1024

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9789084

## Case

- **Full name:** STATE of Oklahoma Ex Rel. Charles W. WRIGHT and Rachel Lawrence Mor, Individuals and Taxpayer Citizens of the State of Oklahoma, Plaintiffs/Appellants, v. OKLAHOMA CORPORATION COMMISSION, a State Agency, and Commissioners Denise A. Bode, Jeff Cloud, Bob Anthony, and Brooks Mitchell, Director of the Oklahoma Storage Tank Division, and Ben Jackson, General Counsel Oklahoma Corporation Commission, and ConocoPhillips Company, an Oklahoma Corporation, Defendants/Appellees; State of Oklahoma Ex Rel. Oklahoma Corporation Commission, State of Oklahoma Ex Rel. Brooks Mitchell, Director of the Oklahoma Storage Tank Division; And, State of Oklahoma Ex Rel. Robyn Strickland, Administrator of the Oklahoma Petroleum Storage Tank Release Environmental Cleanup Indemnity Fund, Plaintiffs/Appellees, v. ConocoPhillips Company, Defendant/Appellee, v. Rachel Lawrence Mor and Charles W. Wright, Intervenors/Appellants
- **Court:** Supreme Court of Oklahoma
- **Decided:** October 3, 2007
- **Citations:** 170 P.3d 1024; 2007 OK 73; 2007 WL 2852635
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Opala
- **Judges:** Opala, Edmondson, Hargrave, Kauger, Watt, Taylor, Colbert, Winchester
- **Cited by:** 29 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9789084

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- stating principle and collecting some of our cases from 2007, 1997, 1937, 1935, and a 1912 opinion from the Court of Criminal Appeals

## Opinion text

OPALA, J.,
I 65 concurring in result in
Part I of the court's opinion and concurring in its remainder
No literal meaning can ever be ascribed to a statutory declaration that is in patent discord with legal reality and its consequences. Instead of attributing to the statute's words an intention of effecting an *1043 unlawful divestiture of public money, we will, as we must, interpret them as no more than impressing the entire fund with a trust dedicated to the purpose for which it was created, permitting no diversion to anything else. When the statute's text is so understood, the title to the fund remains unchanged, but its assets, now firmly committed to a single purpose, stand impervious to legislative tinkering. 1
T 66 WINCHESTER, C.J., Disqualified.
. A long-standing "rule of statutory construction is that the manifest intent of the legislature will prevail over the literal import of words." DeAnnexation of Certain Real Property from the City of Seminole, 2004 OK 60 , 102 P.3d 120, 129 .

---

Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9789084. Public record. Not legal advice.