XAVIER BECERRA Attorney General
CATHERINE BIDART Deputy Attorney General
AGO 16-801
No. 16-801
California Attorney General Opinion
Office of the Attorney General State of California
July 26, 2017
RUBIN
E. CRUSE, Shasta County Counsel, has requested an opinion on
the following question:
Does
Health and Safety Code section 13146 prohibit fire protection
district chiefs from enforcing the State Fire Marshal's
building standards and regulations as they relate to R-3
dwellings?
CONCLUSION
Health
and Safety Code section 13146 does not prohibit fire
protection district chiefs from enforcing the State Fire
Marshal's building standards and regulations as they
relate to R-3 dwellings.
ANALYSIS
A Fire
Protection District
1 is a public agency, separate from a city
or county, that provides fire protection services within a
defined geographical area.
2 Fire protection districts have chiefs,
who are vested with all the powers necessary to carry out the
fire and safety purposes of their districts,
[3] including the
power to issue citations for violations of fire protection
codes and district ordinances.
4
Health
and Safety Code section 13146 addresses the authority of fire
protection district chiefs to enforce the State Fire
Marshal's building standards and
regulations,
5 both in general and as those regulations
relate to "R-3 dwellings"—a term that
encompasses residential occupancies including single-family
homes, as well as a variety of licensed facilities such as
adult care centers, day-care centers, foster family homes,
and drug recovery homes.
6
In this
opinion, we consider whether section 13146 is meant to
prohibit fire protection district chiefs from enforcing the
State Fire Marshal's building standards and regulations
as they relate to R-3 dwellings. For the reasons that follow,
we find that the statute's language does not compel such
an interpretation, and that the statute's context within
the state fire protection statutory scheme as a whole
counters such an interpretation.
In
construing any statute, our purpose is always to give effect
to the legislative intent expressed in the statute. We
"look first to the words of the statute themselves,
giving to the language its usual, ordinary import and
according significance, if possible, to every word, phrase
and sentence in pursuance of the legislative
purpose."
7 On the other hand, where ambiguity exists,
"consideration should be given to the consequences that
will flow from a particular
interpretation."
8 Also salient to our inquiry here is the
principle that statutory language must be read "in the
context of the statutory framework as a whole in order to
determine its scope and purpose and to harmonize the various
parts of the enactment."
9
We
begin with the text of section 13146, which provides, in
relevant part:
The responsibility for enforcement of building standards
adopted by the State Fire Marshal and published in the
California Building Standards Code relating to fire and panic
safety and other regulations of the State Fire Marshal shall
be as follows:
(a) The city, county, or city and county with jurisdiction in
the area affected by the standard or regulation shall
delegate the enforcement of the building standards relating
to fire and panic safety and other regulations of the State
Fire Marshal as they relate to R-3 dwellings, as described in
Section 310.5 of Part 2 of the California Building Standards
Code, to either of the following:
(1) The chief of the fire authority of the city, county, or
city and county, or his or her authorized representative.
(2) The chief building official of the city, county, or city
and county, or his or her authorized representative.
(b) The chief of any city, county, or city and county fire
department or of any fire protection district, and their
authorized representatives, shall enforce within its
jurisdiction the building standards and other regulations of
the State
...