Court Opinion

ID: 9592939
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:18:10.415699+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:13:34.282288
License: Public Domain

WUEST, Chief Justice
(concurring in part and dissenting in part).
I concur, except for the holding of the majority that Argus’s transaction with Lewis in printing the inserts were those of a retailer selling tangible pérsonal property to a consumer. The majority relied upon our decision in K Mart which cited Caldor for the characteristics of a newspaper. However, the following chart illustrates the facts are different in many respects.
K Mart
1. K Mart owned and thus controlled the supplements until delivery, while the newspaper was merely paid for distribution.
2. The supplements were not prepared by the newspaper.
3. The supplements were not a regular feature of a newspaper.
Lewis
1. Lewis never owned “inserts” that were in the newspaper; the advertising was Argus Leader property until delivery to subscribers.
2. Lewis’s advertising was prepared by the Argus.
3. Lewis’s four-page advertising was a fairly regular, semi-weekly feature of the Argus.
*812K Mart
4. Instead of paying for the insertion of the advertising supplement, the newspaper was paid for distributing the advertising supplements.
5. Instead of bearing only the logo of the specific newspaper, the advertising supplements bear a logo which is preceded by the words “supplement to.”
6. The advertising supplements are sometimes offered as free handouts to stores in addition to being distributed within the newspaper.
Lewis
4. The Argus was paid for its advertising services, but it produced the ads itself for the purpose of including them in the newspaper.
5. Lewis’s advertising in the Argus bore only the Argus logo.
6.The Argus does pay sales tax on Lewis’s advertising that is not distributed as a part of the newspaper, but which is delivered separately.
In my opinion the inserts owned by the Argus and delivered to subscribers are an integral part of the Argus Leader and therefore exempt.