Request By:
Mr. Vic Hellard, Jr.
Director
Legislative Research Commission
Capitol Building
Frankfort, Kentucky 40601
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
On behalf of the Interim Joint Committee on State Government, you raise the following questions which it discussed:
(1) Does the Mansion Commission, established pursuant to KRS 11.026 and 11.027, have jurisdiction over the grounds of the Mansion, as well as the executive Mansion?
(2) Does the Mansion Commission have jurisdiction over all funds, regardless of the source, expended for restoration of the Mansion?
Under KRS 11.026(2), the Mansion Commission is established to provide "continuing attention to the maintenance, furnishings, and repairs of the executive mansion. " (Emphasis added). In addition, under KRS 11.027(2), the Commission is required to supervise the maintenance of a current inventory of all furnishings in the executive mansion. KRS 11.027(3) reads:
"(3) The commission shall recommend, from time to time, on the needs for furnishings, maintenance, repair, or renovation of the executive mansion and the finance and administration cabinet shall, from funds available, take such action as is recommended. The commission shall have final authority over articles placed in the mansion and moneys spent on mansion restoration. "
Except for the commission's role in supervising the maintenance of a current inventory of all furnishings of the executive mansion, and except for its determining articles to be placed in the mansion and moneys spent on mansion restoration, the commission's role is that of recommending to the governor and Department of Finance needs for furnishings, maintenance, repair or renovation of the mansion. Thus their function is a mixed bag.
The statutes do not define the term "mansion" , although KRS 11.026(2) and 11.027(3) could be amended to add, after the word "mansion" , "and the mansion grounds."
However, you are calling on us to interpret what we now have on the statutes books.
We believe, as a practical matter, and considering that the mansion grounds are an inevitable part of the mansion area that the definition of the word "houses", as found in § 10 of the Kentucky Constitution, relating to security from search and seizure, is helpful in this context.
Chief Justice Fulton, in Fugate v. Commonwealth, 294 Ky. 410, 171 S.W.2d 1020 (1943), for the court, wrote that the word "house" in § 10, Constitution, which house shall be secure from unreasonable search and seizure, includes some land adjacent to and used in connection with a residence. Such adjacent land, the curtilage, is also exempt from such unreasonable search and seizure. In connection with a Kentucky arson statute, a dwelling house includes curtilage, i.e., a parcel used in connection with and of the dwelling house. Jones v. Commonwealth, 239 Ky. 110, 38 S.W.2d 971 (1931) 973. We find this definition of curtilage (derived from the Latin "cohors", a place enclosed around a yard, and the old French "cortilliage") in 25 C.J.S., Curtilage, page 83: "It has been said that in law 'curtilage' means a small piece of land, not necessarily enclosed, around a dwelling house, and generally includes the buildings used for domestic purposes in the conduct of family affairs." (Emphasis added). The Superior Court of Pennsylvania, in Charch v. Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, 183 Pa. Super. 371, 132 A.2d 894 (1957), adopted the view that curtilage consists of a small piece of land, not necessarily enclosed, around a dwelling house, and generally includes buildings used for domestic purposes and conduct of family affairs.
The Court of Appeals, in United Carbon Company v. Conn, Ky., 351 S.W.2d 189 (1961), defined "dwelling house" , as used in an oil and gas lease, in terms of the common law, as including the cluster of buildings in which a man with his family resides and extends to such outbuildings as are within the curtilage.
It is our opinion that, under the common law definition of dwelling house, the role of the "mansion" commission extends to the immediate grounds used in connection with the executive mansion, to the extent applicable under KRS 11.026 and 11.027. While the mansion has been vacant for a long period, it is our understanding that the governor and his family will shortly take up residence in the mansion. See Whitfield v. Commonwealth, 278 Ky. 111, 128 S.W.2d 208 (1939) 210, relating to a dwelling house as a house occupied or intended to be occupied as a residence.
Concerning question no. 2, above, relating to expenditure of funds for the mansion, the last sentence of KRS 11.027(3) reads:
"The commission shall have final authority over articles placed in the mansion and moneys spent on mansion restoration. " (Emphasis added).
Under the literal wording of the statute, and specifically as it relates to the phrase "money spent on mansion restoration, " it is our opinion that the Commission's authority extends to giving final approval on monies spent on mansion restoration, including final approval of gifts and donations made by private (non-government) entities to the Mansion Commission. Judge Vance, writing for the Court of Appeals, in Griffin v. City of Bowling Green, Ky., 458 S.W.2d 456 (1970) 457, wrote this:
"Where the words used in a statute are clear and unambiguous and express the legislative intent, there is no room for construction and the statute must be accepted as it is written."
Here the words "moneys spent on the mansion" are clear and unambiguous. There is absolutely no qualification nor restriction of the word "moneys spent. " Thus it means, as the legislature clearly intended, any moneys from any source spent on mansion restoration.