Request By:
Sen. Charlie Borders
State Senate
Capitol Building
Frankfort, Kentucky 40601
Opinion
Opinion By: Frederic J. Cowan, Attorney General; Grant Winston, Assistant Attorney General
You requested, by letter to this office of 26 July 1991, a formal opinion on the extent of the application of the statutory exceptions to the normally required sport hunting and fishing licenses in the Commonwealth. The statute in question is KRS 150.170(8) which states:
Any resident who is declared totally and permanently disabled by the federal Social Security Administration or by the state Workers' Compensation Board may, without any sport hunting or sport fishing licenses, do any act authorized by the licenses.
Your question is "whether the exception in Subsection
(8) can be applied to one declared totally and permanently disabled under the federal Railroad Retirement System (45 USC 231a(a))." Our answer is no.
The language of KRS 150.170(8) is clear and unambiguous. Thus, there is no room for it to be construed or applied in any way other than as it is written. See Lincoln County Fiscal Court v. Department of Public Advocacy, Ky., 794 S.W.2d 162 (1990); Regional Jail Authority v. Tackett, Ky., 770 S.W.2d 225 (1989). Had the legislature intended the exception to be applied to those persons declared totally and permanently disabled under another system such as the Railroad Retirement System, it could just as easily have inserted any such exception into the statute along with the two it did. The omission from the statute of the class of persons you describe can only mean that they are not covered by the exception.