Camps Newfound/Owatonna, Inc. v. Town of Harrison, 520 U.S. 564, 37 (1997)

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600

CAMPS NEWFOUND/OWATONNA, INC. v. TOWN OF HARRISON

Scalia, J., dissenting

(Me. 1980) ("religious purposes are not to be equated with benevolent and charitable purposes").

The Maine Supreme Judicial Court has adhered rigorously to the requirement that the exempt property be used "solely" for charitable purposes. Even when there is no question that the organization owning the property is devoted exclusively to charitable purposes, the entire exemption will be forfeited if even a small fraction of the property is not used in furtherance of those purposes. See Lewiston, supra, at 212-213 (denying exemption to a building 18 percent of which was leased at market rates); Nature Conservancy of Pine Tree State, Inc. v. Bristol, 385 A. 2d 39, 43 (1978) (denying exemption to a nature preserve on which the grantors had reserved rights-of-way).

That § 652(1)(A) serves to compensate private charities for helping to relieve the State of its burden of caring for its residents should not be obscured by the fact that this particular case involves a summer camp rather than a more traditional form of social service. The statute that the Court strikes down does not speak of "camps" at all, but rather lists as examples of "benevolent and charitable institutions" nonprofit nursing homes, boarding homes, community mental health service facilities, and child care centers, see § 652(1)(A). Some summer camps fall within the exemption under a 1933 decision of the Supreme Judicial Court which applied it to a tuition-free camp for indigent children, see Camp Emoh Associates v. Inhabitants of Lyman, 166 A. 59, 60, and under a recent 4-to-3 decision which relied heavily on the fact that the camp at issue provided "moral instruction" and training in "social living and civic responsibility," and was not only "nonprofit" but furnished its camping services below cost, see Episcopal Camp Foundation, supra, at 109, 111. What is at issue in this case is not whether a summer camp can properly be regarded as relieving the State of social costs, but rather whether, assuming it can, a distinction between charities serving mainly residents and

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