Court Opinion

ID: 9569381
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:13:19.871484+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:55:29.244898
License: Public Domain

*807Finley, J.
(dissenting)—The business promotional activities of the Port of Seattle, questioned in this proceeding, do not differ substantially from those commonly indulged in, and apparently appropriately, by other private and public sectors of the business community of this and other states. The majority opinion reads:
“. . . It is the respondents’ theory, however, that since the main purpose of such hosting is the promotion of business for the port, the fact that private individuals may incidentally benefit from such expenditures does not make them gifts of public money or property; and this theory was adopted by the trial court.”
I agree with respondents’ theory, as stated by the majority, and the approval and acceptance by the trial court of this theory, view or resolution and disposition of the problem involved. In support of this I shall only add that the promotional activities of the Port of Seattle questioned herein, contrary to the implications of the majority opinion, are not clearly specifically and unequivocally covered or prohibited by the language of Article 8, § 7, of the Constitution of the State of Washington. Interpretation or construction of the language of Article 8, § 7, in a realistic or ultimate sense, is required in order to reach either the result approved and adopted by (a) the majority of this appellate court, or (b) the trial judge in the trial court. The facts or conclusions, the reasons or reasoning, advanced in respondents’ brief and apparently approved and accepted by the trial judge seem to me substantially more convincing and preferable than those approved and adopted in the majority’s disposition of this appeal. Consequently, I dissent.
Hunter, J., concurs with Finley, J.
April 21, 1965. Petition for rehearing denied.