Mary Cocchiarella v. Donald Driggs, 884 N.W.2d 621 (2016)

Citation: Mary Cocchiarella v. Donald Driggs, 884 N.W.2d 621 (2016)
Parent Document: Mary Cocchiarella v. Donald Driggs, 884 N.W.2d 621 (2016)
Jurisdiction: Minnesota (state)
Effective Date: 2016-08-31
Original Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4252990/mary-cocchiarella-v-donald-driggs/ ↗

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Additionally, the court’s present-legal-possession approach to defining “occupying” is unreasonable because it violates our rule against surplusage. This rule of statutory construction requires us to “give effect to all [of a statute’s] provisions,” Minn. Stat. § 645.16 (2014), so that “no word, phrase, or sentence [is] deemed superfluous, void, or insignificant,” Allan v. R.D. Offutt Co., 869 N.W.2d 31, 33 (Minn.2015) (quoting Am. Family Ins. Grp. v. Schroedl, 616 N.W.2d 273, 277 (Minn.2000)); see Goodman, 777 N.W.2d at 758 (“Every word [in the statute] should be given effect.”). Here, a residential, tenant is defined as a “person who is occupying a dwelling in a residential building under a lease or contract_” Minn.Stat. § 504B.001, subd. 12. If, as the court concludes, a person becomes a “residential tenant” merely through “present legal possession” by executing a lease agreement, then the phrase “is occupying” is given no effect and violates the rule against surplus-age. The only reasonable plain meaning of section 504B.001, subdivision 12, which gives effect to all its language and does not render any word or phrase .superfluous, is that a “residential tenant” must have both physical possession (by actually “occupying” the dwelling) and a legal right to possess the dwelling by reason of an executed lease agreement (“under a lease or contract”).

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