Request By:
Mr. John R. Cummins
Attorney at Law
3300 First National Tower
Louisville, Kentucky 40202
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
The Harrods Creek Fire Protection District is located exclusively in Jefferson County and extends to the Jefferson-Oldham County line. A developer of a new subdivision, located exclusively in Oldham County, is forming a fire protection district for the subdivision and has asked the Harrods Creek Fire Protection District to provide services thereto under a contractual arrangement. The subdivision at the closest point is a distance of .55 mile from the Jefferson County - Oldham County line. Certain portions of the subdivision will be as much as one mile or more from the Jefferson County-Oldham County common boundary line.
Under KRS 75.050 a fire protection district may enter into contracts with any other fire protection district "either within the same county or within an adjoining county in an area adjacent to the boundary line between the counties," for the furnishing or receiving of fire protection services for all property within the confines of the contract area, where such protection is not otherwise provided by government. (Emphasis added).
Your question is whether, under KRS 75.050, the subdivision qualifies under the language "within an adjoining county in an area adjacent to the boundary line between the counties." (Emphasis added).
You point out that KRS 75.010 and 75.020 permit a fire protection district to establish or annex an area which may be located in more than one county, without any requirement that the territory in different counties be adjacent to the common boundary county line. This, you think, could have some bearing on how strictly the adjacency requirement is to be enforced under KRS 75.050.
There is no statutory definition of the word "adjacent. " "Adjacent" is defined in Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, p. 11, as being nearby, contiguous, adjoining, abutting or having a common border.
The word was defined in
Plunkett v. Weddington, Ky., 318 S.W.2d 885 (1958) at p. 887:
"The meaning of the word 'adjacent' has been defined in its legal use. As such, it is relative and has more than one meaning. It sometimes means near to or neighboring and sometimes means adjoining, contiguous, or abutting, and its meaning is determined principally by the context in which it is used under the facts of each particular case or subject matter to which applied."
Elsewhere in Plunkett, above, the court wrote that many times "adjacent" is used synonymously with "abutting" and the purpose of its use is to be known from the context. The word "adjacent" is of Latin derivation from "ad-jaceo", to lie at or near, and it is usually to be given a broad substantial construction and not limited to the literal meaning as defined by lexicographers. See
State v. District Court of Ninth Judicial District, Mont., 276 P.2d 969 (1954) 970.
The controlling principle in arriving at the meaning of "adjacent" is that the meaning of the term must be determined by the object sought to be accomplished.
Buchanan Coal Co. v. Manis, Ky., 245 S.W.2d 921 (1952) 923.
In view of the statutory use of the word "adjacent" without any restrictive explanation, and considering the flexible meanings given in the dictionary and in Plunkett v. Weddington, above, and the object to be accomplished, it is our opinion that under KRS 75.050 the subdivision qualifies under the language "within an adjoining county in an area adjacent to the boundary line between the counties," and especially since from the context it appears that any area "near by" the boundary line would reasonably comply with the requirement.