Opinion ID: 1896542
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: The Trial Court's Construction Of The Term School Purpose

Text: Although we conclude that the Superior Court committed no legal error in its reasoning or result, the analysis cannot end here. Because this important issue of statutory construction is of first impression, this Court's institutional role, and the public need for guidance in future cases, requires us to proceed further and review de novo the Superior Court's interpretation of the phrase school purposes. We find that that court's articulation, although not incorrect, is unduly narrow, and that the scope of the definition of school purpose must be enlarged to capture more fully the values that are embedded in that phrase. The Superior Court held that school purposes means the promotion of the legitimate convenience of some or all members of the University community. [25] That activity, to be sure, is one element of a larger constellation of activities that may properly be described as school purposes, but the Superior Court's formulation does not comprehend, or completely describe, the totality of those elements. As used in the statute, the word school (as distinguished from education) is a generic term that describes a diversity of educational institutions, including (without attempting to be exhaustive) primary and secondary schools, universities and other post-secondary educational institutions. Each of these institutions is devoted in a unique way to educating the students who attend it. To accomplish that goal in present-day American society, those institutions are organized into communities that include (among their many members) students, faculty, administrative and support staff, and providers of goods and services. In the case of the University of Delaware, most of whose students live on the campus full-time during the school year, those goods and services include (to name but a few) food, living quarters, books, parking facilities, medical facilities, and a security force. They also include ATM and credit/debit cards to enable students, faculty and other members of the university community to purchase the goods and services they need to function in their respective roles within that community. Given the multidimensional complexity of the school community and the component constituencies and activities that characterize the diverse schools of almost every variety that exist in Delaware, a more comprehensive formulation of school purpose is needed than the one articulated by the Superior Court. The reason is that furthering the convenience of the school community and its members is only one dimension of the ever-evolving array of activities in which schools and their constituencies legitimately engage to carry out their educational goals. Two other critical dimensions are furthering the safety and the welfare of those communities. In our view, therefore, a more appropriate formulation of school purposes is that the use of the school-owned property must contribute to the legitimate welfare, convenience, and/or safety of the school community or its members. That formulation better captures the complex reality that the generic term school purposes is intended to denote. At the same time, it draws a clearer line that will aid the taxing authorities and schools in distinguishing between uses of school-owned property that are properly tax exempt, and those that are not. Although this formulation may sweep more uses of school-owned property into the tax exempt category than it will exclude, that is not the result of any policy judgment by this Court. Rather, it is the consequence of the language chosen by the General Assembly to designate which uses of school-owned property will be taxable, and which will not be. It is for the General Assembly alone to make that determination, not the courts. The only legitimate role of courts that are called upon to interpret an enactment by the General Assembly is to divine, and then effectuate as closely as possible, the legislative intent. The formulation adopted here represents this Court's best effort to carry out that role.