Town of Liberty Grove v. Voight
| Decision Date | 03 November 1998 |
| Docket Number | No. 98-1292,98-1292 |
| Citation | 588 N.W.2d 929,223 Wis.2d 268 |
| Parties | NOTICE: UNPUBLISHED OPINION. RULE 809.23(3), RULES OF CIVIL PROCEDURE, PROVIDE THAT UNPUBLISHED OPINIONS ARE OF NO PRECEDENTIAL VALUE AND MAY NOT BE CITED EXCEPT IN LIMITED INSTANCES. Town of Liberty Grove, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Charles Voight and Voight Marine Service Limited, Defendants-Appellants. |
| Court | Wisconsin Court of Appeals |
APPEAL from a judgment of the circuit court for Door County: JOHN D. KOEHN, Judge. Reversed and cause remanded with directions.
Charles Voight and Voight Marine Service, Limited, (Voight Marine) appeal a judgment in favor of the Town of Liberty Grove for its 1995 and 1996 personal property tax assessment on Voight Marine's ferry, the Yankee Clipper. Voight Marine contends the trial court erred by concluding that the Yankee Clipper is not exempt from the tax under § 70.111(3), STATS., because the boat is not employed in interstate traffic. Because we conclude that the Yankee Clipper is regularly employed in interstate traffic and is therefore exempt from taxation under § 70.111(3), this court reverses the trial court's judgment and remands with directions to enter judgment dismissing the Town's claims and declaring that the Yankee Clipper is a boat employed in interstate commerce and therefore exempt from personal property tax pursuant to § 70.111(3).
Charles Voight is the president of Voight Marine, which operates a passenger ferry service between Gill's Rock in Ellison Bay, Door County, Wisconsin, and various destinations. Voight Marine owns two vessels, one of which is the Yankee Clipper. The Yankee Clipper is a passenger ferry that operates as a permanent substitute for Voight Marine's other vessel, the Island Clipper, when the Island Clipper is either out of service or is making voyages to Fayette State Park in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The Yankee Clipper travels only between Gill's Rock and Washington Island, an island township in Door County, located approximately six miles north of Gill's Rock. In 1995 and 1996, Liberty Grove issued tax bills to Voight Marine on personal property which included the Yankee Clipper. Voight Marine notified Liberty Grove officials that the boat was exempt from taxation under § 70.111(3), STATS., as a boat regularly engaged in interstate traffic and refused to pay the assessments for 1995 and 1996. Because Voight Marine failed to pay the taxes in full, the Town filed suit in small claims court to recover the delinquencies.
On summary judgment, the trial court, on stipulated facts, concluded as a matter of law that the Yankee Clipper was not exempt from personal property tax because it was not engaged in interstate traffic under § 70.111(3), STATS. The court determined that because passengers traveling on the Yankee Clipper were "day trippers" touring Washington Island on partial day tours while on vacation in Door County, the transportation service provided on the Yankee Clipper could not be considered an indispensable link in interstate travel or commerce. Accordingly, the court entered judgment for the Town and Voight Marine appeals the court's conclusion.
Voight Marine maintains that the Yankee Clipper is regularly employed in interstate traffic and is therefore exempt from personal property taxes under § 70.111(3), STATS. 1 Whether a watercraft is regularly engaged in interstate traffic is a question of law which we review de novo. Town of LaPointe v. Madeline Island Ferry Line, 179 Wis.2d 726, 736, 508 N.W.2d 440, 444 (Ct.App.1993). In addition, this court has previously determined that, unlike most tax exemption statutes, § 70.111(3) is entitled to liberal construction in favor of the person required to pay taxes. Id. at 730, 508 N.W.2d at 442. Our analysis requires us to make two determinations: (1) whether the Yankee Clipper was engaged in interstate traffic; and, if so, (2) whether the Yankee Clipper was "regularly" so engaged.
We begin with the first consideration. "Interstate traffic" as used in § 70.111(3), STATS., means interstate commerce as that term is used for interpreting constitutional interstate commerce issues. Id. at 736, 508 N.W.2d at 444. Therefore, we consider whether the Yankee Clipper's activity constitutes interstate commerce.
It is undisputed that the Yankee Clipper's passenger ferry service provides transportation solely within the State of Wisconsin. This court has previously determined that transportation of persons solely within one state, however, may be considered interstate commerce when the intrastate activity is a constituent part of the interstate movement and the activity is more than just casual or incidental to the interstate movement. Id. at 737-38, 508 N.W.2d 444-45. In LaPointe, we concluded that a ferry line, which operated vessels exclusively in Wisconsin and which carried significant numbers of passengers, parcels, and other freight that were in the process of moving in interstate commerce, was regularly employed in interstate commerce within the meaning of § 70.111(3), STATS. We relied upon the United States Supreme Court's analysis in United States v. Yellow Cab Co., 332 U.S. 218, 228-29, 231, 67 S.Ct. 1560, 91 L.Ed. 2010 (1947) (overruled on other grounds, Copperweld Corp. v. Independence Tube Corp., 467 U.S. 752, 104 S.Ct. 2731, 81 L.Ed.2d 628 (1984)), which considered when a local journey might be considered a constituent part of an interstate trip:
When persons or goods move from a point of origin in one state to a point of destination in another, the fact that a part of that journey consists of transportation by an independent agency solely within the boundaries of one state does not make that portion of the trip any less interstate in character. That portion must be viewed in its relation to the entire journey rather than in isolation. So viewed, it is an integral step in the interstate movement. (Citation omitted.)
The Court continued its analysis by noting that practical considerations mark the beginning and end of particular kinds of interstate commerce and suggesting that special arrangements could make what is a local journey a "constituent part of the interstate movement." Id. at 232. Such special arrangements, according to the Court, include a contractual relationship or fares paid and collected as part of the travel. Id. at 231.
Applying these principles, we conclude that the Yankee Clipper was employed in interstate commerce because the majority of passengers utilizing the ferry are out-of-state travelers and because the ferry service operates as a constituent part of these passengers' interstate travels.
First, pursuant to the stipulated facts, it is clear that interstate travelers used the Yankee Clipper to reach Washington Island for the years in question. The parties stipulated that a majority of the tourists using Voight Marine are from out-of-state. While no state-of-origin passenger tracking was conducted specifically for the Yankee Clipper in 1995, the stipulation states that "the chart attached hereto as Exhibit H [a license plate survey for August and September] reflects the passenger count by state of residence for passengers utilizing the Voight Marine Service, Ltd., water carrier transportation service in 1995." According to the chart, almost sixty percent of the license plates were out-of-state. The stipulation also indicates that the Island Clipper did provide...
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