Request By:
Mr. Kenneth A. Bohnert
Jefferson County Attorney's Office
621 West Main Street
Louisville, Kentucky 40202
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
On behalf of the Jefferson County Attorney, you request our opinion on the following question:
"Does KRS 453.060 mandatorily apply to district court clerks of a county without an urban county form of government, when an attorney directs payment of fees be made to the county law library? "
KRS 453.060, as amended in 1982, reads:
(1) If the successful party is represented by a licensed attorney and no jury is impaneled, the following attorney's fees shall be allowed: (a) In the Court of Appeals$10.00(b) In the circuit court5.00(c) In all cases in thedistrict court,2.50
(2) A guardian ad litem or warning order attorney shall be allowed by the court a reasonable fee for his services, to be paid by the plaintiff and taxed as costs.
(3) In a county containing an urban-county form of government the attorney fees allowed by subsection (1)(b) and (c) shall be taxed as costs at the termination of the action and the clerks of the various courts shall at the end of each month pay all sums collected as taxed attorney's fees during the month to the trustees of the county law library to be used by the trustees pursuant to KRS Chapter 172.
Under KRS 453.060(3), in a county containing an urban county form of government (pressently only Fayette), the attorney fees allowed by subsection (1)(b) and (c), (non-jury cases in circuit and district courts where successful party is represented by an attorney), shall be taxed as costs at the termination of the action and the clerks of the affected courts shall, at the end of each month, pay all sums collected as taxed attorney's fees during the month to the trustees of the county law library to be used by the trustees as set forth in KRS Chapter 172.
KRS 453.060 was amended in 1982 (Ch. 118, § 2), to add, inter alia, subsection (3).
The answer to your question is that district court clerks, in counties without an urban county form of government, in applying KRS 453.060, are simply required to turn over the applicable attorney's fee to the successful party's attorney. The district clerks in such counties (counties having no urban county government) have no authority to turn the attorney's fee over to the local county law library even when the winning attorney so directs. In such cases the winning attorney, after receiving his fee from the clerk, if he wishes, may himself turn over the fee to the county law library.
Justice Palmore, in Barrett v. Stephany, Ky., 510 S.W.2d 524 (1974) 526, wrote that it is the duty of the courts to construe statutes literally if it is reasonably possible to do so. Here, the statute, KRS 453.060, is very clear and explicit, and thus we, in our role under KRS Chapter 15, must in this situation construe it literally. Thus the payment of the attorney's fee by the clerk to the county law library is mandatory in those counties containing an urban county form of government. But such payment is not authorized for any other counties.
In addition, a clerk has no authority to pay over the fee to the county law library, in counties not having an urban county form of government, at the request or direction of the fee attorney, since the powers of a public officer are limited to those conferred expressly by statute or which exist by a necessary and clear implication.