Court Opinion

ID: 9662584
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 23:13:33.096795+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:40.860131
License: Public Domain

VANDE WALLE, Justice,
concurring in the result.
I concur in the result reached by the majority opinion. Although I believe the conclusion that Article X, Section 4, of the North Dakota Constitution “applies to linear transportation systems ordinarily extending through multiple geographic taxing districts” is logical, it adds a limitation not specifically contained in the wording of that constitutional provision. Of course, without such a limitation the arguments of Matador, Okie, and Koch that the provision would apply to supermarket carts and wheelbarrows and more significantly the argument of Phillips that it would apply to trucking companies, taxicab companies, and electronic message-handling equipment become much more significant, for the provision indeed appears to sweep with a broad brush if it is not limited in some manner such as to public utilities.
I agree that the decision in State v. Wetz, 40 N.D. 299, 168 N.W. 835 (1918), supports the construction placed upon the constitutional provision by the majority opinion. It appears to me, however, that such interpretations are more properly accomplished by the legislative branch of government which, as this court has observed, is granted the discretion and authority to classify various subjects, including property and persons, for tax purposes, subject only to the limitation that such classification must not be arbitrary or discriminatory. See, e.g., Signal Oil and Gas Company v. *912Williams County, 206 N.W.2d 75 (N.D.1973).
Although, as noted above, I believe the construction placed upon Article X, Section 4, of the North Dakota Constitution is a reasonable one which the Legislature might enact by statute, I do not believe it is the only permissible construction. I do not know what factual situations might arise in which the Legislature, in enacting statutory provisions to implement the constitutional provision, might find such a definition too limiting. I therefore concur in the result reached by the majority opinion with the understanding that the definition of Article X, Section 4, North Dakota Constitution, to apply to “linear transportation systems ordinarily extending through multiple geographic taxing districts” is not a limitation upon the Legislature.