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State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. v. Noyes2/23/2004
e. St. Paul, 609 So.2d at 819. There is no bright line between substantive laws which change existing standards and interpretive laws which change existing standards by redefining and returning to their ostensible "original" meaning. Id.
It must be noted, however, that statutory interpretation and the construction to be given to legislative acts is a matter of law and rests with the judicial branch of government. Bourgeois v. A.P. Green Industries, Inc., 00-1528 (La. 4/3/01), 783 So.2d 1251, 1260. As pointed out by Justice Lemmon in his assignment of additional reasons to the majority opinion in Bourgeois,
True interpretive legislation occurs when the Legislature, upon realizing that a previously enacted law contains an ambiguity or an error, amends the prior law to correct the ambiguity or error before the law has been judicially interpreted. However, after the judicial branch performs its constitutional function of interpreting a law, and the Legislature disagrees with that interpretation, a new legislative enactment is a substantive change in the law and is not an interpretive law, because the original law as interpreted by the judicial branch, no longer applies. (Footnotes omitted; emphasis in original).
Bourgeois, 783 So.2d at 1261 (Lemmon, J., assigning additional reasons).
Ultimately, the supreme court has defined interpretive legislation as that which "determine the meaning of existing laws." St. Paul, 609 So.2d at 820, citing Ardoin, 360 So.2d at 1338. It may be that the legislature intended that the 1992 amendment create an exception to the general rule of coverage found in LSA-R.S. 32:900(B)(2) that was broad enough to allow an exclusion of coverage as to the named insured, as well as to other named persons residing in his household. However, it did not do so and the supreme court determined that the exception could not be interpreted to do so. Until the 2001 amendment to LSA-R.S. 32:900(L), an insurer was not at liberty to limit its liability with respect to the named insured, under the clear wording of LSA-R.S. 32:900(B)(2), which required the vehicle owner's policy of liability insurance to insure the person named in the policy. Any attempt to exclude the vehicle owner and named insured from liability coverage prior to the enactment of the 2001 amendment was contrary to statutory law and public policy. Hence, the amendment is substantive, in that it represents a distinct change in the rights and obligations of the parties. Under LSA-C.C. art. 6 and LSA-R.S. 1:2, such a substantive change in the law cannot be applied retroactively, and the trial court was correct in so finding.
Decree
For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the trial court is affirmed. Costs of this appeal are assessed to Safeway Insurance Company of Louisiana.
AFFIRMED.
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