Court Opinion

ID: 9530278
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:58:50.584001+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:03.762008
License: Public Domain

DAVIES, Judge
(concurring in part, dissenting in part).
I write separately only to express my dissent on the remedy awarded.
I would not set aside 100 percent of the waste disposal fee collected by appellant Western Lake Superior Sanitary District. Instead, we should remand to the district court for a determination of the percentage of the fee that unlawfully impacts interstate commerce. Appellant should be required to return only that unlawful portion.
The resolution I propose is consistent with that in Johnson Bros. Wholesale Liquor v. Commissioner of Revenus, 402 N.W.2d 791 (Minn.1987). In Johnson Bros., the Minnesota Supreme Court first observed:
The harm caused by a discriminatory tax on interstate commerce is that it puts such commerce at a competitive disadvantage relative to local commerce. Logically, the disadvantage suffered by relators could have been corrected either by extending the lower rates of section 340.^436 to all wine producers or by severing the statute from the chapter and thus raising taxes for merchants of Minnesota wine.
The United States Supreme Court has recognized that either of these means of equalizing taxes is an acceptable remedy to unconstitutional discrimination.
Johnson Bros., 402 N.W.2d at 793 (citations omitted). The court then affirmed a tax court decision that equalized excise taxes as the remedy for a discriminatory excise tax statute by collecting back taxes from those who had benefitted from the discriminatory tax. Id. The concept of simply redressing the improper financial effect of a discriminatory fee or tax should guide our disposition in this case.
The part of the waste disposal fee that is not discriminatory is simply irrelevant to this case. Further, setting aside, in its entirety, the fee that has been collected since March 1, 1996, gives respondents a windfall and, without justification, damages appellant’s financial strength. Return of the unconstitutional portion of the fee should be the extent of our concern.