No. 127,221
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF KANSAS
OPAL LITTELL and CHERRY RIDER, Co-trustees of the
Opal Littell Family Trust, et al.,
Appellants,
v.
MERIT ENERGY COMPANY, LLC,
(Successor in Interest to
OXY USA, INC.),
Appellee.
SYLLABUS BY THE COURT
All laws are to be given a sensible construction. A literal application of a statute, which would lead to unreasonable or absurd consequences, should be avoided whenever a reasonable application can be given to it, consistent with the legislative purpose.
Appeal from Stevens District Court; BRADLEY AMBROSIER, judge. Oral argument held May 12, 2026. Opinion filed August 28, 2026. Reversed and remanded with directions.
David G. Seely, Ryan K. Meyer, and Emily K. Arida, of Fleeson, Gooing, Coulson & Kitch, L.L.C., of Wichita, and Erick E. Nordling, of Kramer, Nordling & Nordling, LLC, of Hugoton, for appellants.
Daniel M. McClure, pro hac vice, of Norton Rose Fulbright US LLP, of Houston, Texas, James V. Leito IV, pro hac vice, of the same firm, and Will B. Wohlford, Robert W. Coykendall, and Jonathan A. Schlatter, of Morris, Laing, Evans, Brock & Kennedy, Chtd., of Wichita, for appellee.
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Before HILL, P.J., ARNOLD-BURGER, J., and ANDREA PURVIS, District Judge, assigned.
HILL, J.: This appeal arises from a district court order declaring that a 2008 judgment approving a class-action settlement had become dormant and then
unenforceable two years after dormancy. That class action lawsuit focused on expenses that were regularly deducted from monthly royalty payments due the landowners from natural gas production in the Kansas Hugoton Gas Field.
We find that the district court erred in its interpretation and in its application of the dormancy statute, K.S.A. 60-2403, to this settlement judgment. Also, the court erroneously ignored the continuing supervisory nature of the court's judgment approving the class action settlement. Gas is still being produced, and royalty payments are still being made. The parties to the settlement, on behalf of the class, agreed to continuing court supervision of the payments to ensure compliance with the agreement, and the court incorporated that provision into its judgment. We fail to see how that judgment has become unenforceable merely by the passage of time. We, therefore, reverse and remand.
This lawsuit involves many interests.
This case began in 1998, when three people sued Oxy USA, Inc., seeking damages for the alleged ongoing underpayment of royalties due them from their ownership of mineral interests in lands located in the Kansas Hugoton Gas Field. In 2001, the district court certified the class under K.S.A. 60-223, and defined the class as:
"All persons or concerns owning mineral interests in lands located in the areal confines of
the Kansas Hugoton Gas Field, burdened by oil and gas leases owned in whole or in part
by defendant with respect to gas production from above the base of the Panoma-Council
Grove Field, whose royalty payments have been reduced by a 'gathering/compression'
deduction or 'marketing deduct' identified on the monthly gas revenue detail sent by
defendant to each such member."
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The district court designated Opal Littell and Cherry Rider, the co-trustees of the Opal Littell Family Trust, as well as Bonnie Beelman in her individual capacity, as the representative plaintiffs. Extensive litigation followed.
In 2008, the district court approved a Stipulation of Settlement in the class action. Under the Stipulation approved and incorporated into the court's judgment, Oxy agreed to pay $16.7 million into a settlement fund in exchange for dismissal of the underlying claims. Oxy also agreed not to reduce future royalty payments by more than a specified amount.
As time passed, natural gas flowed and royalties were paid, first by Oxy and then, in 2014, by Merit Energy Company, LLC, a company that purchased the leases from Oxy. Expense deductions from the royalty payments continued.
A concern arose about deductions from the royalties.
In 2023, Cherry Rider (as the sole trustee of the Cherry Rider Family Trust, a successor-in-interest to the Opal Littell Family Trust) and R.W. and Cathy Lucas (as cotrustees of the R.W. Lucas and Cathy Lucas Living Trust, which was a class member) moved to enforce the 2008 Judgment and Stipulation against Merit as Oxy's successor-ininterest. They alleged Merit had been improperly reducing the royalty payments since its acquisition of the leases.
The 2023 order comprehensively nullifies the 2008 judgment.
In its written findings of fact and conclusions of law, the district court carefully staked out its holding: "The Kansas dormant judgment statute [K.S.A. 60-2403] applies broadly to 'any judgment.'" The court went on to say:
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"40. The plain text of the statute evidences a clear intent of the legislature to
apply the Dormant Judgment Statute to 'any judgment.' If the legislature had intended a
narrower application, it would have modified the words 'any judgment.'"
Following up on this interpretation, the court specifically ruled that, since there was no execution attempted nor had a renewal affidavit been filed, the judgment became dormant March 5, 2013, and unenforceable two years later, March 5, 2015. The district court granted Merit's motion to release the judgment and to dismiss the motion to enforce the judgment approving the settlement matter. The court concluded that, because the judgment became dormant in 2013 and had not been revived within two years of dormancy, it was therefore extinguished and ordered it released from the records.
The controlling law is densely worded.
The statute at the center of this controversy is K.S.A. 60-2403(a). It deals with civil judgment dormancy and renewal affidavits. Using a host of commas, subsection (a)(1) identifies what judgments are covered and then sets the judgment dormancy period of five years followed by a two-year period in judgment purgatory then judgment extinction. It provides:
"[I]f a renewal affidavit is not filed or if execution, including any garnishment
proceeding, support enforcement proceeding or proceeding in aid of execution, is not
issued, within five years of the date of the entry of any judgment in any court of record of
this state, including judgments in favor to the state or any municipality in the state, or
within five years from the date of any order reviving the judgment or, if five years have
intervened between the date of the last renewal affidavit or execution filed proceedings
undertaken on the judgment and the time of filing another renewal affidavit or
undertaking execution proceedings on it, the judgment, including court costs and fees
therein shall become dormant, and shall cease to operate as a lien on the real estate of
the judgment debtor. When a judgment becomes and remains dormant for a period of two
years, it shall be the duty of the judge to release the judgment of record when requested
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to do so. Undisputed payments made prior to a request for a release of judgment are
voluntary and not subject to refund or recoupment." (Emphases added.)
After that, subsection (a)(2) defines a renewal affidavit as "a statement under oath, signed by a judgment creditor or the judgment creditor's attorney, filed in the proceedings in which the judgment was entered and stating the remaining balance due and unpaid on the judgment."
We see no need for a renewal affidavit here because of the nature of the judgment. Even though the money portions of this judgment have been paid, serious obligations remain outstanding. This wording alone shows that this statute does not apply. The district court erroneously nullified a judgment that was still alive. Basically, this law deals with the release of liens, and the district court stretched its application too far.
It helps to consider a statute's companions.
The fundamental premise of our legal system is based on court interpretation of laws and not interpretation by a constant recourse to the Legislature. That would be unworkable. When interpreting a statute, a court should first determine what the law's purpose is to fully understand the law's meaning. An important question for a judge tasked with interpreting a statute is to answer the question: What does the Legislature wish to promote or deter with this law? Said another way, what is its purpose? With the answer to that question, a court then has a context to use in making its interpretation. This means that words of a statute can be interpreted in a way to promote the perceived purpose and not interpreted in a way to thwart its purpose.
In addition to the statute's language, it helps to consider where that law is grouped and see if a common purpose or subject can be found in an article and thus consider what possible purpose the Legislature intends for that article's enactment. Cultivated by the
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Legislature, statutes, like grapes, grow in clusters. Solitary statutes are seldom seen. Statutes are created for several reasons, such as to address social issues, gather money and other resources for government purposes, and establish legal procedures and rules that guide our society.
Written by committees and enacted by majorities, laws should be known to our citizens, predictable in application, and neutrally applied based on objective criteria. The goal for judges when they are enforcing those laws is to methodically use objective, general, and predictable interpretations of those statutes. By doing so, courts will promote the important purpose of governance: the promotion of the public welfare through statutory rules of conduct.
A court's reasoned interpretation of laws promotes the public welfare. All laws are to be given a sensible construction. "[A] literal application of a statute, which would lead to absurd consequences, should be avoided whenever a reasonable application can be given to it, consistent with the legislative purpose." United States v. Katz, 271 U.S. 354, 357, 46 S. Ct. 513, 70 L. Ed. 986 (1926). This view of statutory interpretation is well established in Kansas: After deciding what a statute's purpose is, a court must construe that statute in a way that avoids "unreasonable or absurd results." Northern Natural Gas Co. v. ONEOK Field Services Co., 296 Kan. 906, 918, 296 P. 3d 1106 (2013).
In Kansas, statutes dealing with similar subjects and similar purposes are clustered into articles. K.S.A. 60-2403 is the statute at the heart of this dispute. It is clustered in Article 24—Executions and Orders of Sale. Its official title is: "60-2403. Judgment, when dormant; release of record; child support judgments after July 1, 2007, never dormant; court costs, fees, fines and restitution judgments after July 1, 2015, never dormant." (Emphasis added.)
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Giving these words their ordinary meaning, we glean that some judgments can become dormant and some cannot. The titles of the different statutes in this article help us to interpret this statute by providing evidence of the subjects of this article. For example, the titles of the several statutes surrounding this statute are: "60-2401. Writ of execution"; "60-2402. Multiple executions"; "60-2404. Revivor of dormant judgment"; "60-2405. Substitution of judgment creditor"; "60-2406. Sale subject to liens." (Emphasis added.) All of these statutes deal with the rights and procedures applying to judgment debtors and judgment creditors.
Is there a common theme here?
In fact, all 20 statutes found in Article 24 of Chapter 60 of our Kansas statutes address how and when judgment creditors can collect on their judgments. In other words, these statutes are the rules all must follow to preserve debts as judgments and then collect on debts created by a court judgment. By judgment, we mean "[a] court or other tribunal's final determination of the rights and obligations of the parties in a case." Black's Law Dictionary 1002 (12th ed. 2024).
The district court confined its view of the statute to two words: "any judgment."
We find the district court erred in its interpretation of K.S.A. 60-2403 by narrowly focusing on two words in the text of the statute while ignoring the statute's context. Frankly, the district court's interpretation here leads to unreasonable results; thus, its interpretation cannot stand.
We hold that K.S.A. 60-2403 refers to money judgments. In other words, when money or property is owed by a judgment debtor to a judgment creditor, that judgment becomes dormant in five years. Then, if there is no revival of the judgment or an execution on it is not pursued, the judgment expires after two more years have passed.
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After seven years, if there is no attempt to enforce the judgment by some legal collection method, that judgment can be released from the record, upon request. K.S.A. 60-2403(a). In other words, the judgment expires and is legally meaningless.
We cannot say those rules apply to all judgments because such an interpretation leads to unreasonable or absurd results. See Northern Natural Gas Co., 296 Kan. at 918. If K.S.A. 60-2403 applies to all judgments as expressed by the broad language used by the district court here, that means divorce decrees expire after seven years. That means adoption decrees expire after seven years. That means orders quieting title to real estate expire after seven years. No one would reasonably rule that way. It is not the wording of the statute here that leads to an unreasonable result, it is the district court's interpretation of that statute that leads to an unreasonable result.
A closer look at the 2008 judgment is needed.
If Oxy had not already paid the $16.7 million as promised, and the class was seeking to recover that money from the 2008 judgment, our view of this district court order would be different because that judgment is a money judgment. There is no money judgment debt remaining here.
What remains is the enforceability of some court-approved contractual provisions limiting expense deductions from royalty payments due from the ongoing production of natural gas from their land by Merit Hugoton, L.P., a company that purchased the leases from Oxy USA, Inc. after the class action had been settled. The settlement agreement imposes certain conditions that are contractual obligations approved by a court that reserved the right to supervise future royalty payments and their deductions for compliance with the agreement. This supervision and continuing obligation limiting deductions are not a judgment debt to be paid with money or property; they are an
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agreement to conduct business in a certain way. This provision in the judgment deals with conduct, not money.
Basically, this is the question raised by the Plaintiffs' motion to enforce the 2008 judgment: Is the limitation of deductible expenses on future royalty payments binding on Merit? That question remains unanswered because the district court has incorrectly ruled that the class action judgment approving the settlement has expired. If that judgment has expired, by what authority does Merit produce gas from these leases?
We disagree with the district court's attempt to diminish the judgment of the court approving the class action settlement. The court wrote: "The Judgment merely approves a private settlement agreement between Oxy and the class and dismisses the claims brought in 1998." This diminishing view of the court's work on this judgment ignores the important role for the court here. The court had to see that the settlement was for the benefit of all members of the class not just the representative parties. The court's finding here ignores the nature of the court's judgment. It is an approval of a class action settlement.
We do not view the court's 2008 judgment here approving the class action
settlement to be just a rubber stamp approval, insignificant in its effect. After all, the court was required by K.S.A. 60-223(a)(4) to ensure that the representative parties fairly and adequately protect the interests of the class. And, in turn, any settlement, according to K.S.A. 60-223(e), must be approved by the court. Most other lawsuits can be settled and then dismissed at the parties' request. But with the law on class actions, court approval is required, not just an acknowledgment that the parties have settled their dispute. See K.S.A. 60-223(e). With this approval, the settlement contract becomes a part of a court judgment and is thus enforceable by all the legal means available.
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The court's 2023 ruling on the 2008 judgment approving the settlement ignored the court's role of continuing to supervise and enforce the settlement.
Besides Oxy's payment of $16.7 million into a settlement fund, to be paid to the class as compensation for the settled claims, several provisions in the Stipulation limited Oxy's ability to deduct "Fuel Charges" and "Gathering Charges" from future royalty payments to members of the plaintiff class or their successors-in-interest. The specific limitations are found in Sections 2.4 through 2.7.
Limitation on fuel charges from 2007 to 2008:
"2.4 Fuel Charges with respect to gas produced from any Lease shall cease in
their entirety on gas produced on and after July 1, 2008. For the period July 1, 2007,
through June 30, 2008, OXY shall be permitted to continue deducting Fuel Charges from
Plaintiff Class' royalties using the same methodology currently being employed. On gas
produced from any Lease and not compressed on a Gathering Facility, beginning July l,
2007, OXY shall cease any Deductions from Plaintiffs Class' royalties attributable to Fuel
Charges for such gas. The royalty payment methodology described in this section shall be
implemented within forty-five (45) days of the Effective Date."
Limitation on gathering charges for July 2007 production:
"2.5 With respect to all Gathering Charges that are not Fuel Charges,
commencing with its issuance of royalty checks for July 2007 production, OXY shall
only deduct fifteen cents per mmbtu ($0.15/mmbtu) of the pro-rata share of the Gathering
Charges from its royalty payments to members of the Plaintiff Class or their successors in
interest. The royalty payment methodology described in this section shall be implemented
within forty-five (45) days of the Effective Date." (Emphasis added.)
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Limitation on future transportation expense deductions on or after July 1,
2008:
"2.6 It is the intent of the parties hereto that the royalty payments received by
members of the Plaintiff Class or their successors in interest with respect to gas produced
on or after July 1, 2008, shall not be diminished or reduced by any charge other than
fifteen cents per mmbtu ($0.15/mmbtu) for Gathering Charges, taxes owed by them or the
actual cost of transporting such gas on a transmission pipeline." (Emphasis added.)
How to handle gathering charges after July 1, 2007:
"2.7 With respect to any Gathering Charges that are in excess of the amounts
identified in Section 2.4 and Section 2.5 above and that are taken with respect to gas
produced after July l, 2007, OXY shall, within one hundred and twenty (120) days of the
Effective Date, make one or more prior period adjustments, as applicable, to the royalty
checks of the Plaintiff Class so as to conform to the Section 2.4 and Section 2.5 royalty
payment methodology. Such prior period adjustment or adjustments shall be made in
accordance with OXY's standard practice in handling prior period adjustments."
Significantly, in Section 4.2 of the Stipulation, the parties agreed that the court would continue to supervise future deductions.
"Upon approval by the Court of the Settlement, a Judgment shall be entered by
the Court, . . . which shall:
"(g) Reserve jurisdiction, without affecting the finality of the Judgment, over:
(1) implementation of the Settlement and any award or distribution of the
Settlement Fund, including interest earned thereon; (2) disposition of the
Settlement Fund; and (3) enforcing and administering the Stipulation."
(Emphases added.)
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Similarly, in Section 7.10 of the Stipulation, the parties agreed that "[t]he Court shall retain jurisdiction with respect to implementation and enforcement of the terms of this Stipulation. All parties hereto submit to the jurisdiction of the Court for purposes of implementing and enforcing the Settlement and the Stipulation." (Emphases added.)
After a hearing in March 2008, the court entered a Journal Entry of Judgment approving the Stipulation, as required by K.S.A. 60-223(e). In its tenth and final order, the court stated it "reserves jurisdiction, without affecting the finality of judgment, to supervise the implementation of the Settlement." (Emphasis added.) The district court also attached a copy of the Stipulation to the Journal Entry of Judgment as Exhibit A.
A fair reading of these settlement provisions and the court's judgment reserving its supervisory role concerning obedience to its judgment leads us to hold the district court erred when it held this was simply a rubber stamp judgment approving a simple contract. This interpretation ignores the language of the contract and judgment incorporating it and the nature of a court's role in dealing with class actions.
Our holding
We must overturn the district court's judgment because of its erroneous
interpretation of K.S.A. 60-2403. Its view of the statute was too narrow and led to unreasonable or absurd results. See Northern Natural Gas Co., 296 Kan. at 918. The court ignored the nature of the 2008 judgment that requires continuing court supervision of the expenses deducted from the ongoing royalty payments for gas production from this field. We reverse the district court's order holding the 2008 order approving the class action settlement unenforceable by operation of K.S.A. 60-2403. We reverse the district court's order releasing that judgment. We remand for further proceedings.
Reversed and remanded with directions.
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***
ARNOLD-BURGER, J., dissenting: I respectfully dissent from what I believe to be an overbroad approach to statutory construction by the majority that is not supported by our Kansas Supreme Court precedent, nor by the plain reading of the statute at issue.
The facts are simple. In 1998, three individuals sued Oxy USA, Inc., seeking damages for alleged underpayment of royalties related to their ownership of mineral interests in lands located in the Kansas Hugoton Gas Field. In 2001, the district court certified the matter as a class action under K.S.A. 60-223. In January 2008, nine years after the initial filing, the parties notified the district court they had entered a Stipulation of Settlement which settled all claims. Under the Stipulation of Settlement approved and incorporated into the court's judgment, Oxy agreed to pay $16.7 million into a settlement fund in exchange for dismissal of the underlying claims. Oxy also agreed not to reduce future royalty payments by more than a specified amount. And to make sure they didn't, the Stipulation of Settlement provided:
"(g) Reserve jurisdiction, without affecting the finality of the Judgment, over: (1)
implementation of the Settlement and any award or distribution of the Settlement
Fund, including interest earned thereon; (2) disposition of the Settlement Fund;
and (3) enforcing and administering the Stipulation." (Emphases added.)
Similarly, in Section 7.10 of the Stipulation of Settlement, the parties agreed that "[t]he Court shall retain jurisdiction with respect to implementation and enforcement of the terms of this Stipulation. All parties hereto submit to the jurisdiction of the Court for purposes of implementing and enforcing the Settlement and the Stipulation." (Emphases added.)
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In 2023, fifteen years after the approval of the Stipulation of Settlement, the class members filed an action alleging that Oxy's successor in interest, Merit Energy Company, LLC, had been taking excessive deductions from the royalty payments under Section 2.6 since as early as May 2014. The district court ultimately dismissed the claim finding that the movants had not complied with the dormancy statute to keep their judgment alive.
So that gets us to the issue here. Did the court's approval of the parties' settlement agreement in 2008 give the court jurisdiction in perpetuity to hear any claims from the class members that Merit had reduced payments in violation of the settlement agreement or were the class members still required to comply with the procedures set out in K.S.A. 60-2403 to keep their judgment alive?
The district court found that the plain and unambiguous language of the statute makes it clear that any judgment can become dormant unless the parties follow a process to keep it alive or revive it.
"[I]f a renewal affidavit is not filed or if execution, including any garnishment
proceeding, support enforcement proceeding or proceeding in aid of execution, is not
issued, within five years from the date of the entry of any judgment in any court of record
in this state, including judgments in favor of the state or any municipality in the state, or
within five years from the date of any order reviving the judgment or, if five years have
intervened between the date of the last renewal affidavit filed or execution proceedings
undertaken on the judgment and the time of filing another renewal affidavit or
undertaking execution proceedings on it, the judgment, including court costs and fees
therein shall become dormant, and shall cease to operate as a lien on the real estate of the
judgment debtor." (Emphasis added.) K.S.A. 60-2403(a)(1).
There is no dispute that the class members did not follow the statutory procedure to stop the judgment from becoming dormant. And there is nothing in this grant of
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jurisdiction in perpetuity to the district court that suggests movants do not have to comply with Kansas statutes. They are not mutually exclusive.
But the class members argue, and the majority agrees that "the district court erred in its interpretation of K.S.A. 60-2403 by narrowly focusing on two words in the text of the statute while ignoring the statute's context. Frankly, the district court's interpretation here leads to unreasonable results; thus, its interpretation cannot stand." Slip op. at 7.
The majority goes on to conclude that K.S.A. 60-2403 applies only to money
judgments and the district court's view "of the statute was too narrow and led to unreasonable or absurd results." Slip op. at 12.
"If K.S.A. 60-2403 applies to all judgments as expressed by the broad language used by
the district court here, that means divorce decrees expire after seven years. That means
adoption decrees expire after seven years. That means orders quieting title to real estate
expire after seven years. No one would reasonably rule that way. It is not the wording of
the statute here that leads to an unreasonable result, it is the district court's interpretation
of that statute that leads to an unreasonable result." Slip op. at 8.
But the majority ignores the first rule of statutory construction—a rule that our Supreme Court has clearly found trumps all others—and a rule the learned trial judge knew not to ignore. As stated in the appellee's brief,
"Kansas law requires a rigorous adherence to, and faithful application of, the text of the
statute. See, e.g., Glaze v. J.K. Williams, LLC, 309 Kan. 562, 567-68, 439 P.3d 920
(2019) (explaining the Court's efforts over 'last decade and a half to introduce more
discipline into [its] frequent tasks of statutory interpretation' and interpreting statute
based on rules of grammar and punctuation); Hoesli v. Triplett, Inc., 303 Kan. 358, 364,
361 P.3d 504 (2015) (overturning prior cases relying on the spirit of the law and stating
that '[t]he problem with Dickens is that it ignored the legislature's intent as expressed in
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the statute's plain language in favor of the court's contrary perception of legislative
purpose.'); State v. Thompson, 287 Kan. 238, 243, 200 P.3d 22 (2009) ('The court will not
speculate as to legislative intent or read such a statute to add something not readily found
in it.'); In re [Appeal of] Director of Prop[erty] Valuation, 284 Kan. 592, 602, 161 P.3d
755 (2007) ('The most logical and realistic interpretation of the statute is to interpret the
plain language exactly as it is written.' (collecting authority)).
"Indeed, in State v. Euler, the Court refused to apply a rule used to 'divine
legislative intent' but which ignored the plain text of a statute because it was an
'anachronism held-over from the days prior to [the] more rigorous insistence on the
governing principle of statutory plain language.' 314 Kan. 391, 397, 499 P.3d 448
(2021)."
Our Supreme Court tells us that the plain language used by the Legislature is the polestar in statutory interpretation. State v. Hopkins, 317 Kan. 652, 657, 537 P.3d 845 (2023) (citing In re M.M., 312 Kan. 872, 874, 482 P.3d 583 [2021]). Instead, the majority has decided to flip the narrative and ignore plain language as the polestar and look at intent, purpose, and context first.
"When interpreting a statute, a court should first determine what the law's purpose is to
fully understand the law's meaning. An important question for a judge tasked with
interpreting a statute is to answer the question: What does the Legislature wish to
promote or deter with this law? Said another way, what is its purpose? With the answer
to that question, a court then has a context to use in making its interpretation. This means
that words of a statute can be interpreted in a way to promote the perceived purpose and
not interpreted in a way to thwart its purpose." Slip op. at 5.
Certainly intent is important, but we divine intent from the plain language used. An appellate court must first examine the statutory language enacted, giving common words their ordinary meanings. In re Wrongful Conviction of Sims, 318 Kan. 153, 158, 542 P.3d 1 (2024). When a statute is plain and unambiguous, we are not to speculate
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about the legislative intent behind that clear language, and we are instructed by our Supreme Court that we should refrain from reading something into the statute that is not readily found in its words. Schmidt v. Trademark, Inc., 315 Kan. 196, 200, 506 P.3d 267 (2022).
When, as here, there is no ambiguity, the court does not need to resort to the canons of statutory construction or legislative history to construe the Legislature's intent. See Chalmers v. Burrough, 314 Kan. 1, 8, 494 P.3d 128 (2021).
As the district judge pointed out, to interpret the statute as the majority wishes it could inserts words in the statute that are not there. The majority opines that "any judgment" means "money judgments." Slip op. at 7. The class members also argue that "'any judgment'" means "judgments which create a lien on real estate." Undeterred, the majority goes on to rely on yet another canon of statutory construction, that to interpret the statute otherwise would produce absurd results. Slip op. at 8; see Northern Natural Gas Co. v. ONEOK Field Services Co., 296 Kan. 906, 918, 296 P.3d 1106 (2013). But this rule applies only when "the language of the statute is unclear or ambiguous." State v. Arnett, 307 Kan. 648, 653, 413 P.3d 787 (2018).
The recent devotion of our Supreme Court to the plain language of the statute has never been made clearer than in Hopkins, 317 Kan. at 657, in which our Supreme Court reversed years of precedent to return to the clear and unambiguous language of the jail credit statute, irrespective of how that statute contextually interreacted with the others. Yet it is a contextual approach that the majority insists is the standard. They are wrong.
And we must not lose track of the fact that dormancy statutes serve the legislative purpose of extinguishing stale, unenforced judgments after a defined period of inactivity, and courts have suggested that parties cannot stipulate to perpetual or indefinite continuing jurisdiction to circumvent these statutory limits. See Associated Wholesale
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Grocers, Inc. v. Americold Corporation, 293 Kan. 633, 645, 270 P.3d 1074 (2011) ("We are confident the legislature did not intend to permit parties to circumvent the dormancy and revivor time limits by voluntarily agreeing that the judgment creditor would only file a garnishment proceeding against specified assets of the judgment debtor. It would be uncharacteristic for the legislature to permit the tail to wag the dog."). The rules are made clear in the statute. Diligent litigants must follow these procedures to make sure everyone is aware that they still intend to enforce the judgment. Again, there is nothing in the Stipulation of Settlement that exempts the litigants from complying with state statutes. Compliance with the dormancy statute and recognizing the continuing jurisdiction of the court when the prerequisite statutory steps are taken are not mutually exclusive concepts.
I would affirm the district court's decision dismissing the case based on the dormancy of the judgment.
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