Opinion No. GA-0801

Attorney General of Texas — Opinion
September 22, 2010.

GREG ABBOTT, Attorney General of Texas

The Honorable Ronald D. Hankins Somervell County Attorney

204 West Elm Street Glen Rose, Texas 76043

Re: Whether an individual or company in the business of breeding certain birds, rats, mice, hamsters and similar animals for sale to pet shops may register a vehicle or trailer used to transport the animals as a “farm vehicle” under section 502.163 of the Transportation Code (RQ-0863-GA)

Dear Mr. Hankins:

Under section 502.163 of the Transportation Code, a commercial motor vehicle may be registered for a reduced fee as a “farm vehicle” if the owner will use the vehicle “only” for the purposes specified in the statute. TEX. TRANSP. CODE ANN. § 502.163 (West 2007). You ask whether an individual or company in the business of breeding certain birds, rats, mice, hamsters, and similar animals for sale to pet shops may register a vehicle or trailer used to transport the animals as a “farm vehicle” under section 502.163 of the Transportation Code.[1] Your question requires a construction of section 502.163.[2]

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The primary goal of statutory construction is to ascertain and give effect to the Legislature’s intent. Hernandez v. Ebrom, 289 S.W.3d 316, 318
(Tex. 2009). Courts construing a statute “look first to the plain and ordinary meaning of the statute’s words.” City of Marshall v. City of Uncertain, 206 S.W.3d 97,105 (Tex. 2006). Statutory words and phrases must “be read in context and construed according to the rules of grammar and common usage.” TEX. GOV’T CODE ANN. § 311.011(a) (West 2005).

You state that the owner of a business that “breeds birds (such as parakeets), rats, mice, hamsters and other similar animals” asserts that he is authorized to register the vehicle he uses to transport the animals for sale to pet shops as a farm vehicle by virtue of section 502.163(a)(1). Request Letter at 1. Section 502.163(a)(1) allows licensing a vehicle as a farm vehicle “if the vehicle’s owner will use the vehicle for commercial purposes only to transport: . . . the person’s own poultry, dairy, livestock, livestock products, timber in its natural state, or farm products to market or another place for sale or processing.” TEX. TRANSP. CODE ANN. § 502.163(a)(1) (West 2007). The Transportation Code does not define pertinent terms in the statute such as “poultry, livestock, livestock products,” or “farm products.” However, you inform us that the owner contends that the animals he transports meet definitions in the Agricultural Code for such terms as “exotic fowl,” “livestock,” or “exotic livestock” and reasons that the listing of animals in Transportation Code section 502.163(a)(1) should be similarly construed to include his animals. Request Letter at 1-2 (citing Agriculture Code sections 1.003(3) defining “livestock,” and 142.001 (4)-(5) defining “exotic livestock” and “exotic fowl”).

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For undefined terms, “courts generally accept the words used in a statute according to their ordinary meaning.” Garrett v. Borden, 283 S.W.3d 852, 853 (Tex. 2009). Texas courts rely on dictionaries to determine the meaning of terras not defined in statute. Center Point Energy Entex v. R.R. Comm’n of Tex., 208 S.W.3d 608, 619 (Tex. App.-Austin 2006, pet. dism’d). Also, courts construing a word not defined in one statute may take into consideration its definitions in another act of similar nature, but “[a] word defined in one act does not necessarily determine the word’s meaning in another act dealing with a different subject.” Brookshire v. Houston Indep. Sch. Dist., 508 S.W.2d 675, 678
(Tex. Civ. App.-Houston [14th Dist.] 1974, no writ); accord Gen. Elec. Capital Corp. v. ICO, Inc., 230 S.W.3d 702, 707 n. 2 (Tex. App.-Houston [14th Dist.] 2007, pet. denied); Travis Cent. Appraisal Dist. v. Signature Flight Support Corp., 140 S.W.3d 833, 840 n. 4 (Tex. App.-Austin 2004, no pet.).

We first consider the owner’s position that section 502.163 (a)(1) of the Transportation Code should be construed to apply to the transportation of birds such as parakeets, which, he asserts, meet the definition of “exotic fowl” in the Agriculture Code. See Request Letter at 2; TEX. AGRIC. CODE ANN. § 142.001(5) (West 2004). Whether the owner’s birds are exotic fowl under the Agriculture Code is irrelevant because the only reference to a bird of any kind in section 502.163(a)(1) of the Transportation Code is to “poultry.” We must “presume the Legislature chose its words carefully and intentionally.” Kappus v. Kappus, 284 S.W.3d 831, 835 (Tex. 2009). “Poultry” commonly means “[d]omestic fowls, such as chickens, turkeys, ducks, or geese, raised for meat or eggs.”[3] Several Texas statutes define “poultry” consistently with this common meaning.[4] As one court reviewing Texas statutory definitions of the word poultry has noted, “each definition [of poultry] is aimed at the state’s food supply.” See Hendrickson v. Swyers, 9 S.W.3d 298, 300 n.l (Tex. App.-San Antonio 1999, pet. denied) (determining that fighting cocks are not “poultry” in a statute concerning the application of nuisance and other law to preexisting agricultural operations). Giving the word its common ordinary meaning, “poultry” in section 502.163(a)(1) does not include birds such as parakeets that are primarily raised to be sold to pet shops.

You state that the owner also contends that the other animals he transports are “livestock” under section 502.163(a)(1) of the Transportation Code. See Request Letter at 2. The Agriculture Code defines “livestock” generally as “cattle, horses, mules, asses, sheep, goats, llamas, alpacas, exotic livestock, including elk and elk hybrids, and hogs, unless otherwise defined.” TEX. AGRIC. CODE ANN. § 1.003(3)

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(West Supp. 2010). The Agricultural Code defines the term “exotic livestock” in two statutes, both of which limit the term to “single-hooved or cloven-hooved mammals that are not indigenous to this state and are known as ungulates.” Id. §§ 142.001 (4) (West 2004) (concerning estrays), 161.001(a)(4) (concerning disease control). Neither these nor any other definition of livestock in a Texas statute, judicial opinion, or other law of which we are aware includes the animals you describe.[5]

In common parlance, the word “livestock” pertains especially to horses, cattle, and similar farm animals, although some dictionaries also provide definitions that could include a wider range of animals.[6]
However, the rules for giving undefined terms their ordinary meaning do not require choosing the broadest meaning in the dictionary “if a different, more limited, or precise definition is apparent from the term’s use in the context of the statute.” In re Hall, 286 S.W.3d 925, 928-29 (Tex. 2009). Generally, words in a statutory list are given related meaning. Riverside Nat’l Bank v. Lewis, 603 S.W.2d l69, 174 n. 2 (Tex. 1980). When the words “poultry, dairy, livestock, livestock products, timber in its natural state, or farm products” are considered together and in the context of the statute as a whole, they suggest items in the nature of an agricultural commodity or similar items traditionally produced in farming, ranching, or lumbering. See TEX. TRANSP. CODE ANN. §502.163 (West 2007).[7] Considering the common meaning of the terms used in section 502.163 of the Transportation Code and reading them in context, we conclude that the statute does not authorize the owner of a vehicle used to transport non-poultry birds, rats, mice, hamsters and similar animals for sale to pet shops to register the vehicle as a “farm vehicle.”

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SUMMARY

Section 502.163 of the Transportation Code does not authorize the owner of a vehicle used to transport non-poultry birds, rats, mice, hamsters, and similar animals for sale to pet shops to register the vehicle as a “farm vehicle” under the statute.

Very truly yours,

GREG ABBOTT Attorney General of Texas
DANIEL T. HODGE First Assistant Attorney General
DAVID J. SCHENCK Deputy Attorney General for Legal Counsel
NANCY S. FULLER Chair, Opinion Committee
William A. Hill Assistant Attorney General, Opinion Committee

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