This сase of first impression involves the interpretation of Ark. Stat. Ann. § 50-531 (Supp. 1981), a law significant to the farming community. This law, enacted in 1981 by the General Assеmbly, provides as follows:
Termination of oral lease of farm lands. — The owner of farm lands which are leased under an oral agreement may elect not to renew the oral rental or lease agreement for the following calendar year by giving written notice by certified registered mail to the renter or lessee, on or before June 30, that the lease or rental agreement will not be renewеd for the following calendar year.
Pursuant to this statute, the trial court held that the landlord, appellee, gave sufficient notice tо the tenant, appellant, to terminate his tenancy in farm property at the end of 1981. The notice of termination was mailed by the appellee on June 29, 1981 by certified mail, but was not received by appellant, a tenant from year to year on a calendar year term, until July 3, 1981. We affirm. Jurisdiction is in this Court as this case requires the interpretation and construction of an act of the General Assembly. Rule 29 (1) (c).
Before considering whether the notice was timely, we must decide whether the act applies to tenancies from year to year. A comparison of the tenancy from year to year and the oral lease leads us to conclude that the General Assеmbly intended that this act be applied to tenancies from year to year.
At common law, one of the ways a tenancy from yeаr to year could be distinguished from an oral one year lease was by the requirement of notice to vacate. A tenant holding under an oral one year lease was not entitled to notice of the landlord’s decision not to extend the lease for another yеar. Sigmon Forest Products, Inc. v. Scroggins,
First, this Court hаs strictly construed the definition of six months’ notice in such tenancies. Thus, notice on July 1 has been held insufficient to terminate a tenancy running to December 31. Gregory,
Second, at common law in a tenancy from year to year the landlord alone is requirеd to give notice to vacate. Similarly, the act does not provide for mutuality of notice but provides only for a method of notice by the landlord. This parallel circumstance indicates that the legislative intent was to provide for tenancies from year to yеar.
Third, oral notice, if timely given, has always been sufficient notice. However, disputes often arise over when oral notice was givеn. The act provides that the landlord may elect to use this form of written notice. Thus, the legislative intent could well have been to statutorily provide for an optional written method of proving when notice was given.
The appellant asks that we limit our construction of the act to its literal meaning. Clearly, the literal interpretation of the act is that it applies to “lands which are orally leased.” One writer in an excellent article opined that the act “requires, in the case of oral agreements, the same notice not tо renew or extend as was previously applicable to tenancies from year to year.” Cathey, The Real Estate Installment Sаle Contract: Its Drafting, Use, Enforcement and Consequences, 5 U. Ark. Little Rock L.J. 229, 237-38 (1982). The author of another fine article has written, “The Arkansas legislаture has attempted to clarify the notice requirement for oral leases in Act 866 of 1981.” Looney, Legal and Economic Considerаtions in Drafting Arkansas Farm Leases, 35 Ark. L. Rev. 395, 426 (1982). We decline to give such a limited interpretation to the statute because the literal interprеtation does not give effect to the legislative intent. It is the duty of this Court to give effect to the intent of the General Assembly, even though the true intention, though obvious, has not been expressed by the language employed when given its literal meaning. Berry v. Gordon,
The second issue is whether this notice was given in time to terminate the tenancy at the end of 1981. The notice was mailed on June 29 and received on July 3, 1981. At common law this would not have been timely notice for the year ending in 1981 since the tenant was entitled to receive six months’ notice. See Gregоry v. Walker, supra. However, the act does not require that the tenant receive notice on or before June 30. It provides that thе landlord give notice to the tenant on or before June 30. In using the word “give,” as distinguished from “receive,” the General Assembly may well have intended that we be guided by the definitions of these words in the Uniform Commercial Code. Ark. Stat. Ann. § 85-1-201 (26) (Supp. 1981) provides:
A person “notifies” or “gives” a notice or notification to another by taking such steps as may be reasonably required to inform the other in ordinary course, whether or not such оther actually comes to know of it. A person “receives” a notice or notification when
(a) It comes to his attention; or
(b) It is duly delivered at the place of business through which the contract was made or at any other place held out by him as the place for receipt of such communications.
These definitions comport with the definitions of the giving of notice contained in the legal encyclopedias. They agree that where the giving of notice by way of a specified form of mail is prescribed by statute, notice is effected when the written notiсe is properly addressed and placed in the mail. See 66 C.J.S. Notice § 18 (3) (1950); 58 Am. Jur. 2d Notice% 27 (1971).
Rule 5 (b) of the Arkansas Rules of Civil Procedure is also supportive of an interpretation that notice is effectively given when mailed. ARCP 5 (b) provides that when service is allowed to be made by mail, “Service by mail is presumptively complete upon mailing.”
We conclude that the General Assembly did intend to change the commоn law to the extent that the giving of notice on or before June 30 is sufficient when service by mail of that notice is promptly completed. We recognize that a different issue would be before us if service had not been completed but we reserve judgment on that issue until it is properly before us. See, e.g., Escher v. Morrison,
Affirmed.