Miami County Board of Commissioners v. Kanza Rail-Trails Conservancy, Inc.

I join fully in the analysis and holdings of the excellent opinion Justice Luckert has written for the court. I write separately, however, to express my respectful disagreement with a statement regarding the interpretation of statutes that has found its way into the court’s recent cases — a statement that is contrary to the long tradition of statutory interpretation in Kansas and to the most thoughtful views of scholars in the area.

In its opinion, the court says that when an initial look at a statute’s words reveals no ambiguity, the court will not use the tools of statutory interpretation or…