this construction of the statute is contrary to its plain language, but absent
more explicit direction from the Legislature we cannot apply the plain meaning of the statute without contravening other statutory provisions. We do
not lightly depart from the plain meaning of a legislative enactment, but
must do so in light of the conflict presented here.107
No law stands on its own language alone.
There must always be interpretation. As
Benjamin Cardozo wrote, “The tendency
of a principle to expand itself to the limit of
its logic may be counteracted by the tendency to confine itself within the limits of
its history.”108
Those hundred years of workmen’s and
worker’s compensation invite us to appreciate the evolution of the idea and appreciate what a fixture government has become
in