Common Law, Statutes and Rules of Construction

Wyo. Stat. Ann. tit. 8, ch. 1

in effect

Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 8-1-101 Adoption of common law.

The common law of England as modified by judicial decisions, so far as the same is of a general nature and not inapplicable, and all declaratory or remedial acts or statutes made in aid of, or to supply the defects of the common law prior to the fourth year of James the First (excepting the second section of the sixth chapter of forty-third Elizabeth, the eighth chapter of thirteenth Elizabeth and ninth chapter of thirty-seventh Henry Eighth) and which are of a general nature and not local to England, are the rule of decision in this state when not inconsistent with the laws thereof, and are considered as of full force until repealed by legislative authority.

Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 8-1-102 Definitions.

(a) As used in the statutes unless the legislature clearly specifies a different meaning or interpretation or the context clearly requires a different meaning: (i) "Adult" means a person who is not a minor; (ii) "Bond" includes an undertaking; (iii) When used in a context denoting age: (A) "Majority" means that period of time when a person is an adult; (B) "Minor" means a person who has not yet reached the eighteenth anniversary of his birth; (C) "Minority" means that period of time when a person is a minor. (iv) "Month" means a calendar month, and "year" means a calendar year; the word "year" is equivalent to the words, "year of our Lord"; (v) "Oath" includes affirmation; (vi) "Person" includes an individual, partnership, corporation, joint stock company or any other association or entity, public or private; (vii) "Preceding" and "following," when referring to sections in statutes, mean the sections next preceding or next following that in which the words occur, unless some other section is designated; (viii) "Will" includes the words "testament" and "codicil"; (ix) "Written" and "in writing" include printing, lithographing or other modes of representing words and letters, but in all cases if the written signature of any person is required the proper handwriting of that person, or his mark, is intended; (x) "District attorney" includes a county and prosecuting attorney in a county where the office of district attorney has not been created. This definition shall specifically not apply to W.S. 9-1-801 through 9-1-811; (xi) "State penal institution" includes the Wyoming state penitentiary, Wyoming state penitentiary farms and camps, Wyoming women's center, Wyoming correctional facility, community correctional facilities defined by W.S. 7-18-102(a)(i) and any other state penal institution created by law for the incarceration of convicted felons; (xii) "Elected state official" means the governor, secretary of state, state auditor, state treasurer and superintendent of public instruction; (xiii) "Intellectual disability" means significantly subaverage general intellectual functioning with concurrent deficits in adaptive behavior manifested during the developmental period. "Intellectually disabled" means a person with an intellectual disability; (xiv) "Notarial officer" means a notary public or other officer authorized to perform notarial acts as defined in W.S. 32-3-102(a)(xviii); (xv) "Last federal census" means the last official federal decennial census as conducted and officially corrected by the bureau of census, including any changes for boundary modifications, to become effective on July 1 next following the receipt of the official census figures; (xvi) "Population" of a city, town, county, legislative district or other political subdivision shall be determined by resort to the last federal census; (xvii) Repealed by Laws 2025, ch. 9, § 2. (xviii) "Personal digital identity" means the intangible digital representation of, by and for a natural person, over which he has principal authority and through which he intentionally communicates or acts; (xix) "Organizational digital identity" means the intangible digital representation of, by and for a corporation, business trust, estate, trust, partnership, limited liability company, association, joint venture, governmental agency, public corporation or any other legal or commercial entity that is not a natural person, over which it has principal authority and through which it intentionally communicates or acts; (xx) "Honorable discharge" or "honorably discharged," for purposes of law providing Wyoming benefits or exemptions, shall include any veteran of the United States armed forces or national guard whose discharge was general or other than honorable solely as a result of having refused a vaccine for COVID-19 as defined in W.S. 1-1-141(a)(ii). (xxi) "Armed forces" means the army, navy, air force, marine corps, space force and coast guard; (xxii) "Uniformed services" means all of the following: (A) The armed forces; (B) The commissioned corps of the national oceanic and atmospheric administration; (C) The commissioned corps of the public health service; (D) Any other category of persons designated by the president of the United States in time of war or emergency.

Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 8-1-103 Rules of construction for statutes.

(a) The construction of all statutes of this state shall be by the following rules, unless that construction is plainly contrary to the intent of the legislature: (i) Words and phrases shall be taken in their ordinary and usual sense, but technical words and phrases having a peculiar and appropriate meaning in law shall be understood according to their technical import; (ii) Words importing joint authority to three (3) or more persons shall be construed as authority to a majority of those persons, unless otherwise declared in the law giving the authority; (iii) Reference to a numbered section, subsection, paragraph, subparagraph or other subdivision "of the statutes" and the abbreviation "W.S." when used in conjunction with a statute section number or its designation or identification means the Wyoming Statutes in their most recently published form including amendments to original enactments; (iv) Words in the present tense include the future tense; (v) Words in the plural form include the singular and words in the singular form include the plural; (vi) Words in the masculine gender include the feminine and neuter genders; (vii) Any uniform act shall be interpreted and construed to effectuate its general purpose to make uniform the law of those states which enact it; (viii) If any provision of any act enacted by the Wyoming legislature or its application to any person or circumstance is held invalid, the invalidity does not affect other provisions or applications of the act which can be given effect without the invalid provision or application, and to this end the provisions of any such act are severable; (ix) Reference to legislative salary, per diem or compensation in any statute establishing the amount of salary, per diem or compensation to be paid a person who is not a legislator, shall be deemed a reference only to the rate of legislative salary, per diem or compensation set by statute and shall not be construed to authorize the payment of salary for meeting preparation days as provided for legislators under W.S. 28-5-101(e)(iii) or the payment of salary for travel days provided for legislators under W.S. 28-5-101(e)(iv); (x) Reference to the "cooperative tribal governing body" means the inter-tribal council of the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes or its official successor joint governing body. If the cooperative tribal governing body is a party to a cooperative agreement or contract with the state or a political subdivision under the laws of this state, a successor joint tribal governing body or each tribe as an individual sovereign shall remain a party to the agreement or contract unless specified otherwise in the agreement or contract.

Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 8-1-104 Identification of laws amended or repealed in amending or repealing acts.

In amending, altering or repealing any of the laws of Wyoming, it is sufficient to identify each of the laws to be so amended, altered or repealed by designating the particular section, subsection, paragraph, subparagraph or other subdivision of the statutes affected by the appropriate number or letter, or by the appropriate chapter and section of a session law if the law to be amended, altered or repealed is not a numbered statute, and it is not necessary to refer by title or otherwise to the original legislative enactment, or amendment thereof, to be so affected. Each bill for an act to amend, alter or repeal any laws in effect, but not yet published, shall refer to the laws by their title and the date of approval by the governor. Nothing in this section shall be construed as altering any rule or requirement that any portion of an enactment being amended shall be set forth in full.

Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 8-1-105 Identification and designation of sections, subsections and other divisions of bills; duty to insert; method.

(a) Each section, subsection, paragraph, subparagraph, indented clause or other subdivision of every bill for any act, memorial or resolution which may be introduced in either house of the legislature shall be appropriately and systematically identified and designated by number or letter before the bill is introduced. The legislative service office shall select and insert the identification and designation numbers and letters, whenever needed. In arranging and furnishing copies of the laws passed at each session of the legislature for the printer of the session laws or the Wyoming statutes, the legislative service office shall select and insert the appropriate and systematic identification and designation numbers and letters. (b) If any bill is for amendment of a prior enactment in which sections, subsections, paragraphs, subparagraphs and other subdivisions are appropriately identified and designated according to a consistent pattern or system, the identification and designation of portions of the bill may conform to that pattern or system, but otherwise shall be accomplished in accordance with the following rules, as nearly as practicable: (i) The first or only section in a bill shall be identified as section 1, and any following sections shall be identified by Arabic numerals in sequence; (ii) Statute sections within a bill shall be identified by the appropriate title, chapter and section number as: 8-1-105; (iii) Subsections (divisions of sections) shall be identified by lower case letters in parentheses as: (a), (b), (c), etc.; (iv) Paragraphs (divisions of subsections) shall be identified by lower case Roman numerals in parentheses, as: (i), (ii), (iii), etc.; (v) Subparagraphs (divisions of paragraphs) shall be identified by upper case letters in parentheses, as: (A), (B), (C), etc.; (vi) Subdivisions of subparagraphs shall be identified by upper case Roman numerals in parentheses, and any smaller subdivisions shall be identified in accordance with the pattern and system established by this subsection, again starting with Arabic numerals. (c) The legislative service office may also insert appropriate statute section numbers and section headnotes in a bill for an act. However, statute numbers and headnotes are for reference, identification, and to facilitate preparation of copy for printing only, and do not constitute any part of the substantive law of the enactment. The legislative service office may change statute section numbers or headnotes before or after passage of the act as necessary to correct errors or conform statute numbers or headnotes to reflect amendments made by the legislature to the text of the bill.

Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 8-1-106 Effect of repeal of repealing law.

If any law is repealed which repealed a former law, the former law is not thereby revived unless it is expressly provided.

Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 8-1-107 Effect of amendment or repeal on pending actions.

If a statute is repealed or amended, the repeal or amendment does not affect pending actions, prosecutions or proceedings, civil or criminal. If the repeal or amendment relates to the remedy, it does not affect pending actions, prosecutions or proceedings, unless so expressed, nor shall any repeal or amendment affect causes of action, prosecutions or proceedings existing at the time of the amendment or repeal, unless otherwise expressly provided in the amending or repealing act.

Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 8-1-108 When laws take effect.

Every law takes effect ninety (90) days after the adjournment of the session of the legislature at which it was enacted, unless a different effective date is specified therein.

Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 8-1-109 Payment of fines and penalties.

Unless otherwise specifically provided by law, all civil or administrative fines or penalties collected under the Wyoming statutes shall be paid over to the state treasurer to be credited to the public school fund of the county in which the violation for which the fine or penalty was imposed occurred.

Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 8-1-110 References to males and females; separate accommodations for males and females; data reporting requirements.

(a) Notwithstanding any other provision of law, with respect to the application of a person's biological sex under any law or rule and regulation in this state, the following definitions and standards shall apply: (i) A person's "sex" means the person's biological sex, either male or female, at birth; (ii) "Female" means a person who has, had, will have or would have had, but for a congenital anomaly or intentional or unintentional disruption, the reproductive system that at some point produces, transports and utilizes eggs for fertilization; (iii) "Male" means a person who has, had, will have or would have had, but for a congenital anomaly or intentional or unintentional disruption, the reproductive system that at some point produces, transports and utilizes sperm for fertilization; (iv) The terms "woman" and "girl" refer to human females, and the terms "man" and "boy" refer to human males; (v) "Mother" means a parent of the female sex; (vi) "Father" means a parent of the male sex; (vii) With respect to biological sex, the term "equal" does not mean "same" or "identical"; (viii) With respect to biological sex, separate accommodations are not inherently unequal; and (ix) A person born with a medically recognized condition of a disorder or difference in sex development shall not be denied legal protections and accommodations afforded under applicable law. (b) The legislature finds that laws, rules and regulations that distinguish between the sexes are subject to intermediate constitutional scrutiny. Intermediate constitutional scrutiny forbids unfair discrimination against similarly situated male and female persons but allows the law to distinguish between the sexes where such distinctions are substantially related to important governmental objectives. (c) Notwithstanding any provision of law to the contrary, laws, rules and regulations that recognize or enforce distinctions between the sexes with respect to athletics, prisons or other detention facilities, domestic violence shelters, rape crisis centers, locker rooms, restrooms and other areas where safety or privacy are implicated and that result in separate accommodations between the sexes are substantially related to the important governmental objectives of protecting the health, safety and privacy of persons in such circumstances. (d) Any school district, or public school thereof, and any state agency, department, office or other political subdivision that collects vital statistics for the purpose of complying with anti-discrimination laws or for the purpose of gathering accurate public health, crime, economic or other data shall, when identification by sex is used, identify each person who is part of the collected data set as either male or female consistent with the person's sex at birth.

Source: WY Statutes (Official Site)URL: https://wyoleg.gov/statutes/compress/title08.pdfFetched: 10/4/2026