Court Opinion

ID: 9542998
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:41:03.26096+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:09:24.760958
License: Public Domain

WADE, Justice
(dissenting).
I agree with the majority opinion that the term “street railway fares” as used in Sec. 80 — 15—4, U. C. A. 1943, should be given a liberal construction to effectuate the spirit and intent of the legislation rather than a literal construction, but I cannot agree with its conclusion that the plaintiff’s activities did not bring it within that construction as outlined in the prevailing opinion.
If we admit, as we do, that the term “street railway” as used in the statute exempting such systems from sales tax has no reference to a system whose transportation of passengers is based on railbeds then there is no legal or reasonable distinction between the system used by plaintiff and that of a city lines system in its service to outlying communities which admittedly is exempt from such taxes. Although part of such system operates exclusively within the limits of a city and takes on and discharges passengers within those limits, a number of its lines may serve outlying communities in exactly the same manner in which Lewis Bros. Stages served Kearns, and under the prevailing opinion the passengers receiving such service would be exempt from paying sales tax. For example, the Salt Lake City Line’s buses which serve Holla-day and other outlying communities will stop and pick up passengers at designated stops within the city on its trip to Holladay but will not discharge such passengers at any point within the city and on its trip into the city will discharge passengers at various points but will not pick up passengers within the city. This is exactly the same procedure which was used by Lewis Bros. Stages in its service to Kearns. The fact that the service to Holladay and other outlying communities is given by buses which belong to *80a company which also serves a city and which at one time in its history transported passengers over railbeds in that city, does not make it more difficult to collect sales taxes from passengers on such buses than it would on the buses of plaintiff. The collection of such taxes from the patrons of those wishing to go to Kearns and from patrons desiring to go to other outlying communities serviced by Salt Lake City Lines would be just as convenient or inconvenient in the one instance as in the other. The passengers are carried just as long a distance on the buses of the Salt Lake City Lines, and in some instances a much longer distance, and the motorman could just as easily collect the taxes from such passengers as in the case of the interurban company. Such collections on the one system would not slow up overall operations any more than it would on the other.
Section'76 — 2—1 (7), U. C. A. 1948, provides:
“The term ‘street railroad’ includes every railway, and each and every branch or extension thereof, by whatsoever power operated, being mainly upon, along, above or below any street, avenue, road, highway, bridge or public place within any city or town, * * * but * * * shall not include a railway constituting or used as a part of a commercial or interurban railway.”
The first part of this section which the prevailing opinion quotes no doubt was intended to make it clear that the term “street' railroad” includes every railway and every branch and extension thereof which operates mainly along, above or below streets, avenues, roads, highways, bridges, and public places entirely within the limits of any one city or town. But this does not exclude by such definition a transportation system which operates partly within a city and beyond the city limits into the surrounding suburbs, such as this case presents. The last part does expressly exclude from the meaning of that term a railway which is used as a part of a commercial or interurban railway, which I presume means a railway which transports goods *81as distinguished from passengers or which operates from one city to another as distinguished from one which operates within a city and its suburbs. The term “interurban” is ordinarily used to mean going from one city to another as distinguished from going from a city into a suburb thereof even though such suburb might be an incorporated city or town as distinguished from an unincorporated town.
It is important that courts make only distinctions which are clear and understandable and with reasonable basis in fact for such differences, and not interject fine distinctions which are hard to understand and which do not tend to effect the objects of the statute nor promote justice, as required by section 88 — 2—2 U. C. A. 1943. Otherwise, we will constantly be met with injustices caused, as in this case, because the members of the bar are unable to accurately advise their clients of what their rights and liabilities are.
Notwithstanding the distinctions claimed it is obvious that Utah Rapid Transit Co. v. Ogden City, 89 Utah 546, 56 P. 2d 1 and the Utah Light and Traction Company v. State Tax Commission, 92 Utah 404, 68 P. 2d 759, are contrary in principle and from the former decision no one could foresee the result of the latter. With the principles of the latter decision I fully agree because I think it effects the objects of the statute and promotes justice, and is in harmony with Union Portland Cement Co. v. State Tax Comm., 110 Utah 152, 176 P. 2d 879 and Spangler v. Corless, 61 Utah 88, 211 P. 692, 28 A. L. R. 72.
The only possible distinction between the operations which are notoriously carried on by the Salt Lake City Lines without being taxed and which, as I understand it, the prevailing opinion approves, and the operation of the Lewis Bros. Stages in the instant case, sought to be taxed, is that the Salt Lake City Lines operate a street trans*82portation system, part of which is entirely routed within the city limits. I do not think that fact justifies this distinction, nor do I think that section 76 — 2—1 (7), quoted above, requires that the tax be collected because the line runs beyond the city limits.
In my opinion to hold that patrons of the Salt Lake City Lines who are transported beyond the city limits should be exempt from sales taxes, while patrons riding under identical circumstances on plaintiff’s buses under the circumstances of this case should be subject to the tax, is discriminatory and such an interpretation of our statute makes it unconstitutional. I therefore dissent.