Court Opinion

ID: 9568000
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:59:39.07059+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:24:10.973650
License: Public Domain

*445Justice Carlton
dissenting.
The result in this particular case does not particularly disturb me although I think Judge Clark’s dissent in the Court of Appeals expresses the better view. I am the first to concede that the facts disclosed by this record present a close case to call.
I strongly dissent, however, to the formula adopted by the majority to determine whether a newspaper is one of general circulation in this and future cases.
My primary concern is with the third of the four-pronged test adopted by the majority. It provides that, “subscriber distribution must not be entirely limited geographically to one community, or section, of the taxing unit.” This, read with other parts of the test, could lead to ridiculous results which I can best illustrate by a hypothetical.
Suppose County A, with a population of 40,000, has 20 townships. Townships 1 and 20, at opposite ends of the county, have the greatest percentage of the county’s population; each has 11,000 people. The remainder of the county’s population is about evenly divided between the remaining 18 townships; each has a population of approximately 1,000 people. Each of these 2 townships has a town with a newspaper which meets requirements 1, 2 and 4 of the majority’s formula. That is, both papers have a content which appeals to the public generally, both have more than a de minimis number of paid subscribers in the taxing unit and both papers are available to anyone in the taxing unit who wishes to subscribe to it. The newspaper in Township 1 has a paid circulation of 500; 499 in Township 1. One person outside Township 1, the county tax collector who lives in Township 20, also subscribes to the paper.
Under the formula adopted by the majority, the paper will qualify as one of “general circulation” since it meets the requirements of parts 1, 2 and 4 of the formula and, since one person outside the township is a paid subscriber, the paper, under step 3, is “not entirely limited geographically to one community, or section, of the taxing unit.”
While unimportant to the decision concerning the paper in Township 1, the paper in Township 20 has a paid circulation of 400 in Township 20 and no less than 10 subscribers in every other *446township. I agree with the majority that Township 20’s paper should qualify as one of general circulation.
The result qualifying the paper in Township 1, however, as one of “general circulation” is simply absurd. I cannot imagine that our legislature intended for notice to have such little meaning.
That our legislature intended that such notices be circulated in every township of a county is demonstrated by the statute itself. G.S. 105-369(d) provides that if a county has no newspaper of general circulation, advertisements should be posted in at least one public place in each township. Clearly, the statute contemplates countywide notice. Why else would the legislature require a posted notice in Township 17 for a tax lister who resides on his only property in Township 3? The answer, of course, is that the legislature intended for “the word to get around.” Under the majority’s formula, I submit, the word will not “get around.” An advertisement is also required to be posted at the county courthouse even with the notices to run in the newspapers. Moreover, the statute does not limit the notice to a paper of general circulation. The statute provides that notice shall be run for four successive weeks in “one or more newspapers having general circulation in the taxing unit.” From all of this, it is crystal clear that our legislature considered notice to delinquent taxpayers far more important than does the majority of this Court.
I would vote to make the third prong more stringent: that the paid subscriber distribution must be more than de minimis in a substantial number of townships within the taxing unit. This requirement will ensure that the notice will have wide geographic distribution. Such I believe is inherent in the statutory requirement of general circulation.
I vote to reverse the decision of the Court of Appeals.
Justice HUSKINS joins in this dissenting opinion.