Keller v. Marion County Ambulance District

I respectfully dissent.

The majority opinion reaches the remarkable conclusion that the word “fees” used in Missouri Constitution article X, § 22(a) does not mean “fees.” In reaching that conclusion, it leaps across the primary principles for determining the meaning of constitutional language and relies on secondary rules of construction and “legislative history” to support its result. The majority seeks to avoid direct precedent construing the same constitutional provision now at issue, declaring both the rationale and result of that precedent to have been overruled previously. More…