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#5 - Honorable Board of Directors - 10/20/55 The rule of statutory construction is well established that the state and a subdivision of the state, including administrative agencies, counties, cities and special districts, are not bound by general words of a statute which would operate to limit the sovereign rights of the state, or its agencies, or to injuriously affect the capacity of the state, or its subdivisions to perform their functions, unless the intent to so bind the state and its subdivisions clearly appears. (3 Sutherland Statutory Construction, 3d Ed., 1943, §6301.) The rule is well stated in o2 Corpus Juris Secundum, page 554, as follows: "The government, whether federal or state, and its agencies are not ordinarily to be considered as within the purview of a statute, however general and comprehensive the language of act may be, unless Intention to include them is clearly manifest, as where they are expressly named therein, or Included by necessary implication. "This general doctrine applies, or applies with special force, to statutes by which prerogatives, rights, titles, or interests of the government would be divested or diminished . . . " Normally speaking, such words as "person" and "corporation" are not construed as including the state or its subdivisions (82 C.J0S. 557). v The addition in 1931 of the language that the metering prohibition shall [not] apply to cities and towns owning and operating municipal water works" appears to have been a superabundance of caution, since, under generally accepted rules of statutory construction, the definition of a "public utility" would not ordinarily include the state, or a public corporation or agency of the state. The fact that other public corporations and agencies, such as irrigation districts and water districts, were not included with cities and towns should not affect the conclusion that they are not to be construed as being "public utilities." 6 y Probably the strongest argument that the District is not subject to the provisions of other laws is found in the language of Section 19 of the Las Vegas Valley Water District Act. Section 19 of the Act provides, in part, as follows: