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Fisher v. Kansas Crime Victims Compensation Board12/9/2005
conduct. This act, along with the others listed, i.e., consent, provocation, or incitement, including the use of fighting words or obscene gestures; willing presence in a vehicle operated by someone known to be under the influence; failure to retreat or withdraw from a situation when an option to do so is readily available; and failure to act as a prudent person, are broad in nature and may encompass many different factual situations, which may or may not contribute to the injury. While the Board certainly has the discretion to determine that a minor's abuse of alcohol contributed to his or her injury if the evidence would support such a conclusion, the problem in this case is that no evidence was presented to support the conclusion that Jeremy's misconduct "contributed to the injury for which the claim made." K.A.R. 20-2-8.
The Board is correct that it was in no way bound to apply either a "comparative fault" or "proximate cause" analysis in awarding crime victims compensation, and nothing in the plain language of the statute or the legislative history suggests that these tort analyses were expected or intended to be utilized by the Board in awarding crime victims compensation. However, it is important to note that the regulation provides that the "contributory misconduct" must have "contributed to the injury." This is essentially half of the comparative fault jury instruction. See PIK Civ. 3d 105.01, Comparative Fault Theory and Effect ("A party is at fault when he or she is negligent and that negligence caused or contributed to the event which brought about the injury or damages for which claim is made."). Regardless, the Board needed to apply the statute and regulation so as to give some meaning to the term "contributory," and these definitions provide some guidance in this regard.
When construing a statute, the court must give words in common usage their natural and ordinary meaning. Schmidtlien Electric, Inc. v. Greathouse, 278 Kan. 810, 822, 104 P.3d 378 (2005) (quoting Sawyer v. Oldham's Farm Sausage Co., 246 Kan. 327, 331, 787 P.2d 697 ). Statutes providing for an award of compensation to crime victims are remedial in nature. "A legislative act remedial in nature is to be liberally construed to effectuate the purpose for which it was enacted." Smith v. Marshall, 225 Kan. 70, Syl 1, 587 P.2d 320 (1978).
Black's Law Dictionary 353 (8th ed. 2004) defines "contributory" as " ending to bring about a result" or " contributing factor." Webster's defines "contributory" as "of, relating to, or forming a contribution," and "contribute" is defined as "to give or supply in common with others" or "to play a significant part in bringing about an end or result." Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary 245 (1980).
Application of the dictionary definitions, the above case law, and the legislative history, and an examination of the statute and regulation, all support our conclusion that the Board erroneously interpreted and applied the term "contributory misconduct" in this case. In all of the cases discussed above, "contributory misconduct" or "contributed to the infliction of his injury" was only found in cases where the claimant's misconduct caused, contributed, or was the proximate cause of the injury. Although the Board is granted great deference in the interpretation of its statutes and regulations, we conclude that the Board's application of the term "contributory misconduct" to the facts of this case disregards the meaning of "contributory" and the regulation's requirement that the misconduct "contributed to the injury for which the claim is made."
Although Jones counsels that this court need not adopt a definition of the term "contributory misconduct," th
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