Request By:
Steve Banahan, Jr.
Property Valuation Administrator
Court House Annex
300 West Main Street
Lexington, Kentucky 40507
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By William S. Riley, Assistant Attorney General
In your recent letter to the Attorney General it is stated that a local Kentucky utility company has been requested to furnish a list of business firms or corporations receiving electrical service for the purpose of assessing such firms for ad valorem taxes on tangible personal property. The company refused to furnish the information on the grounds of invasion of the right of privacy.
The question is whether under KRS 132.275 such information can be required of utility companies operating in Lexington-Fayette County.
The heading of the statute, KRS 132.275, states that it is for the purpose of requiring public utilities in a county containing a city of the first class to give a property valuation administrator information concerning their customers. The statute lists gas, water, electric light and telephone companies operating in a county containing a city of the first class as those utilities that shall furnish to the property valuation administrator a list showing the names and addresses of persons, firms or corporations receiving service from such utilities. On every Monday, the utility company shall furnish to the property valuation administrator a report containing the names of persons, firms or corporations who have during the week preceeding ordered gas, water, electric light or telephone service installed, removed or discontinued. The information is confidential and is to be used only for the purpose of making accurate records. The property valuation administrator shall permit the city assessor of the city of the first class and any other taxing bodies of the various governments to examine the records for official purposes only. They shall treat such information as confidential.
It will be noted that the statute is quite plain both as to heading and content in referring to counties containing a first class city.
A statute is open to construction only where the language used therein requires an interpretation or can be reasonably considered ambiguous. Where no ambiguity appears, it has been presumed conclusively that the clear and explicit terms of a statute express the legislative intent. A plain and unambiguous statute is to be applied and not interpreted since such statute speaks for itself. Any attempt to make it clearer is a vain labor and tends only to obscurity. See 73 Am.Jur.2d, Statutes, Section 194.
In H. O. Hurley v. Martin, 101 S.W.2d 657, 267 Ky. 182 (1937) the Kentucky Court of Appeals stated that it is bound by the plain meaning of the language used in a statute. Any resort to rules for construction of statutes may be waived where legislative intent is clearly evidenced from the plain and precise words used. To the same effect see Ex Parte Collett, 69 S. Ct. 944, 959, 337 U.S. 55, 93 L. Ed. 1207, 10 A.L.R.2d 921 (1949).
In Department of Revenue v. Greyhound Corp., 321 S.W.2d 60 (1959) the Court of Appeals stated it has the duty as a Court to accord to words of a statute their literal meaning unless to do so would lead to an absurd or wholly unreasonably conclusion.
The plain meaning of KRS 132.275 is that information concerning the names and addresses of persons obtaining utility services is to be furnished by a utility company operating in a county containing a first class city. Until such time as the legislature sees fit to broaden the application of the statute to require companies operating in counties containing cities of other classes to furnish the information set out in KRS 132.275, it can only be applicable to counties containing first class cities.