Court Opinion

ID: 9700838
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 21:50:41.856995+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:15.024581
License: Public Domain

Meijjtz, J.
(dissenting in part). I concur in the portion of the opinion which discusses the school fund and answers the question propounded “Yes.” I disagree to the extent that the opinion answers the question “No,” and with the reasoning which leads to that conclusion.
The single issue involved in this aspect of the case is whether Newtown, in paying from public funds other than the school fund for transportation for children attending St. Rose’s School, is acting in contravention of article seventh, § 1, of the constitution of this state. The pertinent portion of the constitutional provision is that “no person shall by law be compelled to join or support, nor be classed with, or associated to, any congregation, church or religious association.” The issue is one solely of interpretation of this specific constitutional provision. The majority opinion recites the stipulated facts. St. Rose’s School is under the control and supervision of the ministry of the Roman Catholic Church. The school opened on September 3, 1958, with 217 pupils, all from New-town. All of these pupils were transported to and *394from the school in busses operated at town expense.
The question of the constitutionality of the statute resolves itself to this: Does the payment by the town for the transportation of pupils to or from St. Eose’s School constitute support of the school within the proscription of article seventh, § 1? The following from Judd v. Board of Education, 278 N.Y. 200, 211, 212, 15 N.E.2d 576, is typical of the statements found in cases which have had occasion to-discuss the subject: “The argument is advanced that furnishing transportation to the pupils of' private or parochial schools is not in aid or support of the schools within the spirit or meaning of our organic law but, rather, is in aid of their pupils. That argument is utterly without substance. . . . Free transportation of pupils induces attendance at the school. The purpose of the transportation is to-promote the interests of the private school or religious or sectarian institution that controls and directs it. Tt helps build up, strengthen and make-successful the schools as organizations’ (State ex rel. Traub v. Brown, 36 Del. 181, 187 . . .). Without pupils there could be no school. It is illogical to-say that the furnishing of transportation is not an aid to the institution while the employment of teachers and furnishing of books, accommodations and other facilities are such an aid. ... If the cardinal rule that written constitutions are to receive uniform and unvarying interpretation and practical’ construction is to be followed, ... it cannot successfully be maintained that the furnishing of transportation to the private or parochial school out of' public money is not in aid or support of the school.”'
The position of the majority is that the transportation is in furtherance of the state’s compulsory education policy and that § 10-281 represents *395the legislative concern for the welfare and safety of children who must use the highways in attending school in accordance with the requirements of the law. The view is that since the expenditure serves to further the public welfare, it is a form of support which does not offend the proscription of the constitutional provision. The majority opinion does not question that where transportation is required to enable a child to attend school, it is an integral part of the operation of the school, and that payment of the expense of transportation is an expenditure in support of the school. The opinion professes to draw a distinction between a form of support which is proscribed and a form which is constitutionally permissible. In my view all compulsory support is proscribed, and the only questions to be resolved are whether the expenditure involved constitutes “support” and, if it does, whether the beneficiary of the support is a “congregation, church -or religious association” within the meaning of article seventh, § 1, of the constitution. Here, the ■existence of both elements is established.
The opinion refers to a number of decisions in state courts where the constitutional validity of legislation such as that which is under consideration has been sustained. In most of the state courts where the question has been presented, the legislation has been held to violate state constitutional restrictions. State ex rel. Traub v. Brown, 36 Del. 181, 187, 172 A. 835; Judd v. Board of Education, 278 N.Y. 200, 211, 15 N.E.2d 576; Mitchell v. Consolidated School District, 17 Wash. 2d 61, 65, 135 P.2d 79; Gurney v. Ferguson, 190 Okla. 254, 255, 122 P.2d 1002, cert. denied, 317 U.S. 588, 63 S. Ct. 34, 87 L. Ed. 481, rehearing denied, 317 U.S. 707, 63 S. Ct. 153, 87 L. Ed. 564; Visser v. Nooksack Valley School *396District, 33 Wash. 2d 699, 708, 207 P.2d 198; McVey v. Hawkins, 364 Mo. 44, 55, 258 S.W.2d 927. The-New York ruling was followed in 1938 by an amendment to the state constitution empowering the legislature to provide for the transportation of children to and from any school. N.Y. Const. Art. XI § 4. In New Jersey, a constitution was adopted in 1947 containing a similar provision. N.J. Const. Art. VIII *4(3).
The question we have is purely one of interpretation of a provision written into our constitution and of upholding it as it is written. The law leaves to' every man the right to entertain such religious views as appeal to his individual conscience and to provide for the religious instruction and training of his own children to the extent and in the manner he deems essential or desirable. When he chooses to seek for them educational facilities which combine secular and religious instruction, he is faced with the necessity of assuming the financial burden which that choice entails. The observation of Justice Rutledge in his dissent in Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1, 58, 67 S. Ct. 504, 91 L. Ed. 711, is apposite in this connection: “No one conscious of religious values can be unsympathetic toward the burden which our constitutional separation puts on parents who desire religious instruction mixed with secular for their children. They pay taxes for others’ children’s education, at the same time the added cost of instruction for their own. Nor can one happily see benefits denied to children which others receive, because in conscience they or their parents for them desire a different kind of training others do not demand.”
The discussion in the majority opinion of the exemption of the property of religious organizations *397from taxation is, in my view, not relevant to the question before us. In recognition of the importance of religion to the public welfare, it has been the firmly settled policy of the state since colonial days to leave such property, as property sequestered to public uses, untaxed. We have consistently recognized that the statutes do not grant an exemption in the technical sense but merely state a rule of nontaxability. Arnold College v. Milford, 144 Conn. 206, 210, 128 A.2d 537; Brunswick School v. Greenwich, 88 Conn. 241, 243, 245, 90 A. 801; St. Bridget Convent Corporation v. Milford, 87 Conn. 474, 478,, 88 A. 881. This policy has been in pursuance of the “principle that property necessary for the operation of State and municipal governments, and buildings occupied for those essential supports of government, public education and public worship, ought not to be the subject of taxation, [a principle which] has been with us accepted as axiomatic.” Yale University v. New Haven, 71 Conn. 316, 332, 42 A. 87. The exemption takes nothing from the funds which have been raised by taxation and is not the same thing as compelling contribution to churches to the extent of the exemption. Cobb, The Rise of Religious Liberty in America, p. 523. As was said in Trustees of Griswold College v. State, 46 Iowa 275, 282, a constitutional prohibition against the levying of taxes or other rates for church purposes does not embrace a prohibition against exempting church property from taxation. See 2 Cooley, Constitutional Limitations (8th Ed.) p. 1089, n.2.
It is my view that the answer to the question propounded in the stipulation for reservation-should be “Tes.”