New Jersey Supreme Court Opinion

On Monday, the New Jersey Supreme Court decided Hunterdon Medical Center v. Township of Readington. In a thirty-five page published opinion, the New Jersey Supreme Court affirmed a new test first put in place by Judge Kuskin of the Tax Court. The Supreme Court used this new test in order to discern whether the hospital at issue was in fact a “hospital” eligible for property tax exemption. In so doing, the New Jersey Supreme Court redefined the term “hospital” itself.

The New Jersey Supreme Court stated in part:

“In our view, the analysis for ‘hospital purposes’ must take into consideration the many medical pursuits permitted to the ‘modern’ hospital in New Jersey. A hospital can no longer be restrictively equated with a nineteenth, or even twentieth, century vision of a monolithic building, in which is offered continuous inpatient care or emergency treatment, twenty-four hours per day, to the sick, disabled, and infirm. Licensing authorities have allowed hospital activities to evolve as inpatient stays have diminished. Today, treatment often is delivered on an outpatient basis at a hospital’s main facility, as well as at off-site facilities, backed up by the promise of ready inpatient care from the general, acute-care hospital when necessary. Thus, a fair definition of core “hospital purposes” must acknowledge the variety of activities that a modern hospital can be expected to perform for patients, be they inpatients or outpatients. That said, a hospital’s expansive view of its mission does not necessarily equate with ‘hospital purposes’ in the tax exemption analysis.”

Ultimately, the Supreme Court affirmed the majority of the Tax Court’s and Appellate Division’s holdings, which affirmed the denial of the Hospital’s tax exemption application, and remanded the case back to the Tax Court for further fact-finding on one narrow issue. (The New Jersey Supreme Court remanded the case to the Tax Court for further fact-finding on the sole and precise issue as to whether the PT Service on the second floor of the hospital should be tax exempt.)

The full text of the New Jersey Supreme Court’s opinion may be found HERE.