Opinion ID: 1896542
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Plain Meaning Argument

Text: As noted, the County first argues that the Superior Court erroneously failed to accord the statutory term school purpose its plain meaning. The issue underlying that argument, i.e., what is the meaning of the phrase school purpose, is one of first impression. Although the Superior Court observed that there is no legislative history for the Court to rely upon, there is historical background that, although modest, aids this Court's own analysis. The present § 8105 is the successor to a statute that was first enacted in 1796, and amended from time to time thereafter. Its first appearance was in Vol. 2, Laws of Delaware, Ch. XCVIII, p. 1247, which provided: That all real and personal property in this state, not belonging to this state, or to the United States, or to any church, county, religious society or parish, or to any college, or to any county school, or to any corporation for charitable uses, shall be valued agreeably to the directions of this act, and shall be chargeable according to such valuation with the public assessment.... Thus, as originally enacted, the statute exempted from taxation any property belonging to any college ... or ... county school, without any limitation upon how the property could be used. In 1893, the statute was amended (in pertinent part) to read: All real and personal property not belonging to this State, or the United States, or any county, church, religious society, college or school, or to any corporation for charitable uses, shall be liable to taxation and assessment for public purposes.... [11] Thus, the 1893 statute exempted from taxation property ... belonging to... any ... college or school, again without limiting how that property could be used. [12] In 1909, however, the General Assembly again amended the statute to limit, for the first time, the permissible uses of property owned by any college or school, for that property to qualify as tax exempt. The 1909 amendment modified the 1983 statute to add to the phrase belonging to ... any ... college or school ... the language  and used for educational or school purposes ... [13] The result of that amendment was to qualify as tax exempt, property that was owned by any college or school and that was used for educational or school purposes. That phraseology (educational or school purposes) has survived in this form from 1909 to the present, and is found in the current § 8105. The issue is what uses the General Assembly contemplated by its choice of the term school purposes. The statute does not answer that question, because it leaves that term undefined. Moreover, the phrase educational or school purposes has been construed only once, almost seventy years ago, by the Superior Court in Burris v. Tower Hill School Association, [14] and even there the court did not separately construe the term school purpose (as distinguished from educational purpose). In these circumstances, the Superior Court determined that it must analyze § 8105 according to its own terms. That conclusion was correct, because undefined words in a statute must be given their ordinary, common meaning. [15] In its effort to fathom the meaning of the statutory term school purposes, the Superior Court next determined that by including the word school in the phrase used for educational or school purposes, the General Assembly must have intended that school purposes would have a meaning different from educational purposes. That conclusion, although vigorously disputed by the County, is supported by the legislative history discussed above, and it is also consistent with the presumption against construing words in a statute as surplusage if there is a reasonable construction that will give them meaning. [16] The Superior Court's finding that educational purposes and school purposes have distinct, separate meanings is also consistent with, and is buttressed by, the fact that the dictionary definitions of those two terms are different. As that court noted, education is defined as: 1: the act or process of educating or being educated.... 2 a: a process or course of learning, instruction or training that educates or is intended to educate.... b: a system of formal education as a whole.... 3: the product of an education [17] School, however, is defined differently as: 1a (1): an organized body of scholars and teachers associated for the pursuit of and dissemination of knowledge (as in a particular advanced field) and constituting a college.... 1b (1): the pupils or students attending a school .... (2): the members of a school including both faculty and students [18] Accordingly, the Superior Court concluded (as do we) that the term education focuses on the act or process of educating or learning, while the term school refers to the organized body of students, faculty, administrators, and employees who come together as a community to engage in the act or process of education. The County's contrary argument also relies upon dictionary definitions as a tool of plain meaning statutory construction. The County, however, limits itself to the definitions of the terms school and purpose, and it then selectively combines those definitions to arrive at the opposite conclusion. The dictionary definition of purpose, the County says, is: 1 a: something that one sets before himself as an object to be attained: an end or aim to be kept in view, in any plan, measure, exertion, or operation.... 1 b: an object, effect, or result aimed at, intended or attained.... [19] The primary definition of school, the County then argues, is an organized body of scholars and teachers associated for the pursuit and dissemination of knowledge. [20] Combining those two definitions, the County concludes that a school purpose must be one that has as its intended object, end or aim, the pursuit of or dissemination of knowledge by students and teachers. The County argues that [t]he Legislature surely did not intend to confer tax exempt status upon a use (such as the Bank)... that does not have as its intended aim or object [the] achievement of the University's prime function: the teaching of students... Therefore (the County says), the Superior Court's conclusion that the WSFS branch  which exists only to serve the ancillary commercial needs of the University's constituencies and the public  is tax exempt, ignores the plain meaning of school purpose as used in § 8105. The County's argument is flawed, not only because of its selective choice of dictionary definitions, but also and more fundamentally because it makes no effort to address the distinct meanings of educational and school and to give those different meanings functional effect. The County's analysis focuses on the definitions of the terms school and purpose, but ignores altogether the highly different definition of educational. The County also ignores the primary thrust of the definition of school, which focuses upon the community of persons and roles that comprise an educational institution. Instead, the County selects but one (but not the only) important activity in which that community is engaged: imparting and receiving knowledge. The result of that result-oriented analysis is to conflate the two different terms educational and school into a single undifferentiated term: educational. In defense of its approach, the County urges that, unless rejected, the Superior Court's statutory construction will open the floodgates and potentially exempt from taxation, all property owned by schools, colleges, and universities, even if that property is used in a manner that is unrelated to the objective of imparting and receiving knowledge. Therefore, this Court must draw a bright line that proscribes all tax exemptions for school-owned property, except for property that is used to impart or receive knowledge. In our view, if any statutory interpretation would open the floodgates to results that, in the absence of a clear statutory mandate, could not rationally be attributed to the legislature, it is the construction advocated by the County. As the Superior Court aptly noted in its Opinion: [I]f a small branch bank that provides admittedly convenient banking services to the University community is not to be exempt from property taxation in that it does not serve a school purpose, then what of the bank's ATM machines situated around the campus? Should the dining facilities, the travel office, the bookstore, and/or the movie theatre/lecture hall (all located within the Student Center) similarly be taxed as not furthering school purposes? What about space provided to telecommunications providers elsewhere on University property? Indeed, the County acknowledged at oral argument that University parking lots do serve school purposes, and should not be subject to property taxation. The Superior Court was not persuaded by the County's argument, and neither are we. In construing the statute, that court did not ignore the plain meaning of the term school purpose, nor did it err in refusing to accept the County's argued-for plain meaning of that term. As discussed elsewhere in this Opinion, the WSFS branch, like the rest of the University's campus and its accompanying student services, contributes to the welfare, convenience and safety of the University community. That property is, therefore, being used for a school purpose, and to the extent the County claims otherwise, its position lacks merit and is rejected.