Summary
finding no specific statutory authority under Mental Health Law § 77 to support petitioner's request for attorney's fees, the Court held it did not have the authority to award fees by presuming such an omission was a legislative oversight
Summary of this case from In the Matter of The Application of Dong Sic Ko v. the City of N.Y. Dep't of Finance Parking Violations BureauOpinion
Argued May 16, 1951
Decided June 1, 1951
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Second Department, WALSH, J.
Myron Perla Gordon and Hyman M. Chapnick for appellants.
Louis Koenigsberg for respondent.
The Statute of Frauds requires that an agreement be in writing if by its terms performance is "not to be completed before the end of a lifetime" (Personal Property Law, § 31, subd. 1). Had the Legislature intended the "lifetime" referred to to be the lifetime of the promisor, the party to be charged, or the lifetime of any particular person, it could easily and readily have so provided. (See 4 Ariz. Code Ann. [Official ed.], § 58-101, subd. 8; Cal. Code Civ. Pro., § 1973, subd. 6.) The language found in the statute is clear and unambiguous, and, as this court long ago declared, and frequently repeated, in the construction of statutes, the intent of the framers "is to be sought first of all, in the words and language employed, and if the words are free from ambiguity and doubt, and express plainly, clearly and distinctly, the sense of the framers of the instrument, there is no occasion to resort to other means of interpretation. It is not allowable to interpret what has no need of interpretation, and when the words have a definite and precise meaning, to go elsewhere in search of conjecture in order to restrict or extend the meaning. * * * Courts cannot correct supposed errors, omissions or defects in legislation * * *. The office of interpretation is to bring sense out of the words used, and not bring a sense into them." ( McCluskey v. Cromwell, 11 N.Y. 593, 601-602; see, also, Matter of Rathscheck, 300 N.Y. 346, 350.)
The judgment appealed from should be affirmed, with costs.
LOUGHRAN, Ch. J., LEWIS, CONWAY, DESMOND, DYE, FULD and FROESSEL, JJ., concur.
Judgment affirmed.