Court Opinion

ID: 9569398
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:13:32.6274+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:56:50.332122
License: Public Domain

HONORABLE NAT ALLEN, District Judge,
sitting in place of Mr. Justice DOYLE:
I dissent. Exemption statutes should be strictly construed. With this point both counsel for respondent and the majority opinion agree and yet this summer camp which entices children up there with the lure of boating, swimming, fishing, archery, horseshoes, water skiing, and other summer pastimes that can only be enjoyed on a beautiful lake like Flathead is now construed by the court to be either a “place of actual religious worship” or an “educational” institution and while the transcript deals very little with educational matters, it does a great deal with religious matters which was the theory on which the case was tried. The respondent moved to amend his complaint to conform to the proof at the end of the testimony and the lower court said it would do so on its own motion.
The majority opinion grounds its decision on the fact that the camp is “calculated, designed, and programmed to lead the children through a two-week course in the practice of a moral and Christian life” and they are not simply there to “let off steam.” Thus, they become educational and are therefore exempt. The majority may perceive this as a sound distinction but I wonder how the assessor will apply such a principle? If he went up to see and perceived that they were letting off steam, then it would be taxable, if not, it is exempt. I predict that under this decision all the assessor can do is to allow exemptions to all the churches up there and if he does not, some district court will feel obliged to do so under this decision and a great deal of this 75 dollar a foot lake front land will gravitate to exemption status, since it will be no problem for any church to put on a program that will nicely come within the scope of the evidence here presented.