Request By:
Ms. Rosemary F. Center
Wolfe County Attorney
Courthouse
Campton, Kentucky 41301
Opinion
Opinion By: David L. Armstrong, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
You request the opinion of this office regarding whether or not the Wolfe Fiscal Court may require, pursuant to KRS 67.083, a coal company, wishing to haul over the statutory weight limit, to obtain a permit from the county and post a bond for any damages which they might cause to the county road.
Trucks traveling along any highways, including county roads, are generally held to a maximum of 18,000 pounds gross weight, including the load. KRS 189.221(4). In addition, pursuant to KRS 189.230(1), a county judge executive in respect to county highways may prescribe, by proper notice, load limits lower than the limits prescribed in KRS 189.221, whenever in his judgment any county highway may, by reason of its design, deterioration, rain or other natural causes, be damaged or destroyed by motor trucks or semi-trailer trucks, if their gross weight exceeds certain limits.
One of the powers of a fiscal court is the making of provisions for roads and enforcement of traffic regulations. KRS 67.083(3)(t). However, a fiscal court must scrupulously avoid devising any traffic regulation in conflict with existing statutory law.
The specific answer to your question is that a fiscal court in Kentucky has no authority to establish a system of permits whereby coal or other products truck haulers would be permitted to haul such commodities over county roads in excess of statutory weight limits. Such a permit system would be in direct conflict with the legislative program envisioned in KRS 189.221 and 189.230. It logically follows that the posting of a bond procedure to take care of any damages caused by such haulers would not be authorized. In addition, there simply are no statutory provisions authorizing such a fiscal court permit system and bond posting. It is axiomatic that a fiscal court is a body of limited authority and may exercise only such power as the state legislature has expressly or by necessary implication conferred upon it.
Burns v. Moore, 307 Ky. 167, 209 S.W.2d 735 (1948). Cf. KRS 189.276, relating to the issuance of resource recovery road hauling permits by the Transportation Cabinet for the operation of motor carriers in natural resources producing counties or natural resources impact counties for the purpose of transportation of natural resources in vehicles whose gross weight, including vehicle and load, exceed the limits prescribed in KRS Chapter 189.
As we pointed out in OAG 84-21, where a vehicle is properly equipped and operated under applicable statutes and has proper load weights, generally the vehicle operator or owner is not answerable in damages to the county in contributing to the wear and tear of county roads. The right of action accrues where road repairs are necessitated because of a wrongful, negligent or unreasonable use of the public way.