The Act, by definition, only applies to an employee who is a police officer or firefighter employed full-time by a public body.
The Delaware courts have recognized that the meaning of a word in a statute may be defined in the statute. "[I]t is a basic principle of draftsmanship that a statute can define terms as the lawmakers see fit in order to make clear what is intended." C & T Associates v. Government of New Castle, Del. Ch., 408 A.2d 27, 30 (1979); Shiftel v. Malarkey, Del. Supr., 384 A.2d 9 (1977). Moreover, a basic principle of statutory interpretation holds that, "[t]he definition of a term in the definitional section of a statute controls the construction of that term wherever it appears throughout the statute." IA Sutherland Statutory Construction, § 20.07 (5th ed. 1993).
Since the General Assembly defined the term employee to mean police officer or firefighter, this definition of the term controls the construction of that term in the statute, including any amendments to the statute. Amendments are assimilated into a statute so that an amendment to a statute should be read together with the unamended sections of the same statute as if the amendment and the provisions of the unamended original had been enacted as one statute. See, IA Sutherland Statutory Construction, § 22.34 (5th ed. 1993). Thus the meaning of the word employee in the amended § 1602(l) has the meaning given to
|
|