Court Opinion

ID: 9778571
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 21:12:48.829526+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:11.742868
License: Public Domain

STEPHENSON, Justice
(concurring).
I concur in the disposition of this appeal and agree that the case should be affirmed. However, I do not concur in that portion of the majority opinion holding appellants to qualify as “natural persons” as that term is used in the provision of the Constitution in question.
I interpret “all lands owned by natural persons” to mean the beneficial owner of the land. Even though the legal title to the land involved in this litigation was vested in the Trustees, the beneficial owner of the land is the Foundation created by the testamentary trust. No one contends the Foundation is a “natural person.”
If this land should qualify under this provision of the Constitution, the Foundation and not the Trustees individually would receive the benefit. To further demonstrate the inequity of the majority holding, if the testator had named a bank as Trustee for this testamentary trust, the same land could not qualify, simply because the Trustee was not a natural person.
Further, under this holding, a corporation owning land for future industrial purposes, could convey it in trust to a natural person as Trustee, for agricultural use, and receive the benefit of this Constitutional provision. I do not conclude this interpretation to be a reasonable construction of such provision.