Russell County, et al. v. City of Phenix City, et al., [Ms. SC-2024-0045, Jan. 10, 2025] __ So. 3d __ (Ala. 2025). In a plurality opinion, the Court (Parker, C.J.; Wise and Stewart, JJ., concur; Mitchell, J., concurs in part and concurs in the result; Shaw, Bryan, Sellers, Mendheim, and Cook, JJ., concur in the result) affirms the Russell Circuit Court’s judgment declaring that the Alabama Terminal Excise Tax Act (“ATETA”) a comprehensive revision of the motor fuel tax collection and enforcement system in the state did not repeal Act No. 859, Ala. Acts 1969 (“the local law”) providing “ten percent of [Russell] county’s share of the state gasoline excise tax provided for by [Act No. 224], be distributed to the several incorporated municipalities in the county ....”
The ATETA repealed Act No. 224, a general law providing for the “distribution and use of the proceeds of the excise tax levied on gasoline and other motor fuels by Code of Alabama 1940, Title 51, Chapter 25, Article 5.” Russell County argued because the local act referenced Act No. 224, the local act was also repealed by the ATETA. Ms. *8.
The County relied on the specific-reference canon of construction and argued that the “ATETA implicitly repealed the local law because of its specific reference to Act No. 224 and that the local law applies only to the county’s share of the proceeds of the Alabama gasoline excise tax, as set forth in the distribution scheme established in Act No. 224.” Ms. *8. The main opinion rejects all of the Counties’ various arguments:
[F]rom time to time it is good to be reminded that “[n]o canon of statutory interpretation is absolute. Each may be overcome by the strength of differing principles that point in other directions.” Antonin Scalia & Bryan A. Garner, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts, p. 59 (Thomson/West 2012). ... Here, we conclude that application of the specific-reference canon is outweighed by the fact that certain provisions within the ATETA assume, as a premise, that local legislation in existence at the time the ATETA was enacted continued to apply to gasoline excise taxes levied under the ATETA. As the circuit court noted, § 40-17-359(f) and (p)(2)c.1., Ala. Code 1975, provide that “[a]ny local laws or general laws of local application now in effect regarding the distribution of the tax levied by Section 40-17-325 shall govern the distribution of the amounts allocated or apportioned within every county by this section.”
Ms. **11-12.