Court Opinion

ID: 9608061
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 03:05:25.337223+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:43.435455
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE NELSON
specially concurs.
I concur with the result of our decision but not in our analysis. In determining whether Carter was personally injured by the gasoline tax, we analyze where the legal incidence of the tax falls. Although *44the United States Supreme Court noted in Chickasaw that often the dispositive question in Indian tax cases is who bears the legal incidence of the tax, the legal incidence analysis goes to the merits of the taxation issue. Chickasaw did not involve a standing issue, and thus, properly resolved the taxation issue presented there on the basis of a legal incidence analysis. In the instant case, we need not and should not reach the merits, but need only affirm the District Court’s grant of summary judgment based on Carter’s lack of standing. Therefore, we should limit our analysis to standing and should not implicitly reach the merits of Carter’s claims by addressing the legal incidence of the tax.
The sole issue on review is whether the District Court properly granted summary judgment to the Montana Department of Transportation. The District Court granted summary judgment because it found that Carter did not have standing to challenge the validity of Montana’s gasoline license tax as applied to Indian retailers inside the boundaries of the Rocky Boy Reservation.
Standing is a justiciability doctrine designed to control access to the judicial system by determining who is entitled to have a case adjudicated. See Olson v. Department of Revenue (1986), 223 Mont. 464, 469-70, 726 P.2d 1162, 1166. Originating in Article VII, section 4 of the Montana Constitution, the standing doctrine limits judicial power to “cases at law and equity.” This Court has interpreted “cases at law and equity” to embody the same limitations as the Article III “case or controversy” provision in the United States Constitution. Olson, 726 P.2d at 1166; Stewart v. Bd. of Cty. Comm’rs of Big Horn Cty. (1977), 175 Mont. 197, 201, 573 P.2d 184, 186.
The fundamental aspect of standing is that it focuses on the party seeking to get a complaint before a court and not on the issues the party wishes to have adjudicated. Flast v. Cohen (1968), 392 U.S. 83, 99, 88 S.Ct. 1942, 1952 , 20 L.Ed.2d 947, 961. Courts approach standing in two ways. The first approach focuses on the constitutional provisions of standing and the second approach focuses on the prudential restrictions that courts use to preserve judicial credibility and to deny standing. Olson, 726 P.2d at 1166; Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church and State (1982), 454 U.S. 464, 475, 102 S.Ct. 752, 760, 70 L.Ed.2d 700, 711.
At a minimum, the constitutional provisions require that a plaintiff be personally injured or be threatened with immediate injury by the alleged constitutional or statutory violation. Olson, 726 P.2d at 1166-67; Chovanak v. Matthews (1948), 120 Mont. 520, 526-27, 188 *45P.2d 582, 585. Thus, at the threshold of every case, especially those where a statutory or constitutional violation is alleged to have occurred, is the requirement that the plaintiff allege “such a personal stake in the outcome of the controversy as to assure that concrete adverseness which sharpens the presentation of issues.” Northern Border Pipeline Co. v. State (1989), 237 Mont. 117, 129, 772 P.2d 829, 836; Olson, 726 P.2d at 1166 (quoting Baker v. Carr (1962), 369 U.S. 186, 204, 82 S.Ct. 691, 703, 7 L.Ed.2d 663, 678). This personal stake requirement is dispositive. If a party seeking review is not among the injured, that party is not entitled to judicial review. Olson, 726 P.2d at 1166-67 (citing Sierra Club v. Morton (1972), 405 U.S. 727, 734-35, 92 S.Ct. 1361, 1366, 31 L.Ed.2d 636, 643); but see Grossman v. State, Dept. of Natural Resources (1984), 209 Mont. 427, 438-39, 682 P.2d 1319, 1325 (holding that in special circumstances, presenting issues of an urgent nature, this Court will accept original jurisdiction and drape the taxpayer with standing).
For example, in Olson, the appellants challenged the constitutional validity of certain statutes that require county residence to obtain benefits such as obtaining a fishing or hunting license or running for county office. The appellants were citizens of Montana but did not live within any county boundaries. Olson, 726 P.2d at 1166. We held that the appellants did not allege that the statutes injured them personally or threatened them with immediate injury. Therefore, they did not meet the threshold requirement of a personal stake in the outcome of the controversy.
Similarly, Carter challenges the constitutional validity of a statute imposing a gasoline license tax. See § 15-70-204, MCA. That statute requires every distributor to pay a license tax for the privilege of engaging in and carrying on business within Montana. Importantly, the tax does not apply to a retailer. As a retailer, Carter was not among the injured and thus cannot allege a personal injury. Because she has not alleged the requisite personal stake in the outcome of the controversy, she is not a proper party before the court.
Where the legal incidence of the tax falls is immaterial for purposes of resolving the standing issue in this case, and our decision to affirm should not be grounded in analysis that is more appropriately directed to the merits of the taxation issues raised by Carter’s complaint. Accordingly, I specially concur only in the result of our opinion.
JUSTICE TRIEWEILER concurs in the foregoing special concurrence.