Request By:
Hon. Franklin S. Yudkin
Attorney at Law
310 West Liberty Street
Suite 709
Louisville, Kentucky 40202
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney, General; Joseph R. Johnson, Assistant Attorney General
This letter is in response to your request for an opinion of this office as to whether an administrative board is prohibited from meeting on Sunday pursuant to Kentucky's Sunday Closing Law. Specifically, you have inquired whether the Board of Dentistry may meet on Sunday, April 1, 1979, at 8:30 a.m.
KRS 436.160(1) states as follows:
Any person who works on Sundays at his own or any other occupation or employs any other person in labor or other business, whether for profit or amusement, unless his work or the employment of others is in the course of ordinary household duties, work of necessity or charity or work required in the maintenance or operation of a public service or public utility plant or system, shall be fined not less than two dollars nor more than fifty dollars. The employment of every person employed in violation of this subsection shall be deemed a separate offense.
This statute only applies to any person who works on Sunday at his own or any other occupation. The applicability of this statute to the question under consideration depends upon whether the administrative board members are engaged in their occupations when they participate in a board meeting.
Black's Law Dictionary, Revised Fourth Edition defines the word occupation as follows:
That which principally takes up one's time, thought, and energies; especially, one's regular business or employment; also whatever one follows as the means of making a livelihood . . . Particular business, profession, trade or calling which engages individual's time and efforts, employment in which one regularly engages or vocation of his life.
KRS 313.200 provides that the Board of Dentistry shall consist of seven (7) members, six (6) of whom shall have been a licensed practicing Kentucky dentist for not less than five (5) years immediately preceding his appointment to the board. The seventh member must be a citizen at large who is not associated with or financially interested in the practice of dentistry. The statute also provides that each member shall hold office for four (4) years and that no member shall serve more than two consecutive terms. Each member except the secretary-treasurer shall receive compensation in the amount of fifty dollars ($50) for each day he is actually engaged in the duties of his office. The annual compensation of the secretary-treasurer is established by the board at its annual meeting. KRS 313.210 provides that the board's annual meeting will be on the first Tuesday in June but may meet more often if necessary.
It is therefore clear that because administrative board members are regularly engaged in other full-time employment and do not occupy the respective board positions as a means of making a livelihood or as their regular business or employment, such members do not come within the ambit of KRS 436.160(1).