Judges: WILLIAM L. WEBSTER
Filed Date: 4/28/1986
Status: Precedential
Modified Date: 7/5/2016
Dear Director Rice:
This letter is in response to your question asking what constitutes an "investigation" under Section
Every law enforcement officer who investigates a vehicle accident resulting in injury to or death of a person, or total property damage to an apparent extent of five hundred dollars or more to one person, or who otherwise prepares a written report as a result of an investigation either at the time of and at the scene of the accident or thereafter by interviewing the participants or witnesses, shall forward a written report of such accident to the superintendent of the Missouri state highway patrol within ten days after his investigation of the accident, except that upon the approval of the superintendent of the Missouri state highway patrol the report may be forwarded at a time and/or in a form other than as required in this section.
You also ask if the following procedure is in compliance with that statute:
If the accident involves a fatality or injury or property damage requiring the vehicle to be towed, then a report is filled out and forwarded to the Missouri State Highway Patrol. If a property damage accident does not require a tow, regardless of the apparent $500 damage to the vehicles, no report is filled out, and the responding officer provides the persons involved an Exchange of Information Form.
A review of Missouri case law does not disclose any case in which a court has defined the term "investigation". Under the rules of statutory interpretation, however, the legislature is presumed to have intended every word to have its plain and common meaning. Kolocotronis v. Ritterbusch,
It seems clear, therefore, that an "investigation" is not determined by the results of an inquiry, but rather by the fact that an inquiry was made. It is the gathering of information by an office to determine whether injury occurred or the extent of property damage that makes an investigation and not what the investigation reveals. In other words, when a law enforcement officer takes action to gather information about an accident, either through arriving at the accident scene or talking to witnesses or the participants, that officer is investigating that accident regardless of the extent of injury or damage disclosed.
Section
For this reason the answer to your second inquiry is that the "tow-away" criteria set out above does not comply with Section
We conclude that a law enforcement officer "investigates" an accident under Section
Very truly yours,
WILLIAM L. WEBSTER Attorney General